Return To the Past
by JeremyX
Summary: SUMMARY REFORMATTED. It has been a month since the fall of XANA, and the gang is graduating from high school! But when an unknown entity attacks the school, Jeremy will reveal a lot more about him than we already knew... My first story! R&R! SOON TO UNDERGO REBOOT. COMPLETE
1. Prolouge

**Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko.**

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Return To the Past

Prologue

It all started on a dull October 9th for 13-year-old whiz kid of Kadic Jr. High, Jeremy Belpois. He was making robots for a school-wide robot battle competition, and he needed some new parts, so he decided to explore an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the school. What he found there was more than what he bargained for; a supercomputer complex with scanners of some sort, along with a mysterious digital world called Lyoko. This world contained a virtual being named Aelita along with an evil demonic artificial intelligence called XANA who uses towers in Lyoko to gain access to Earth. With the assistance of three kids: Yumi Ishyama, Ulrich Stern, and Odd Della Robia, they stopped XANA, saved the world at least twenty times, and, as Jeremy wanted, materialized Aelita.

Later, they discovered that the creator of Lyoko and XANA was a scientist named Franz Hopper, whom they later found out was Aelita's father. He created a program called Carthage to hack into enemy government computer systems and destroy them. But, when it turned on them, Hopper contained Carthage in a digital world called Lyoko, and created XANA to govern it. Later, it seemed, the government was going to arrest him for "illegal experimentation", and he took his daughter, Aelita, with him. He hoped XANA would let them hide out there for a while until they were safe. Unfortunately he turned on them and stole Aelita's memory and shut down the supercomputer. But, when XANA's Schyphozoa killed Aelita when XANA set a trap, Hopper saved her and gave back her memory.

Later, XANA possessed William Dunbar, a new member of the group elected against Yumi's wishes, and used him to destroy the core of, which destroyed entirely, Lyoko. However, Franz Hopper, trapped in the Network, gave Jeremy the blueprints for Lyoko via e-mail. Shortly after this, XANA created his own worlds named Replikas, using supercomputers from all over the world, to take over the world. Jeremy created a virtual submarine to go into the net and destroy the Replikas called the Skidbladnir; the name Aelita got from one of Hopper's books. However, after they destroyed at least ten, XANA drew all the energy from all the Replikas to create a 50-foot tall monster with a gigantic sword for an arm called the Kolossus, which destroyed the "Skid". Hopper then sacrificed himself to give Jeremy a multi-agent system that freed William from XANA, destroyed the Replikas, the Kolossus, and XANA itself. Finally, after re-electing Sissi into the group, the shut down the supercomputer ending their adventures on Lyoko.

That all happened a month ago. Today was a normal day in PE class at Kadic Jr. High. The next week, almost everyone would be graduating to high school, and everyone was exited, especially the Lyoko Gang. Now that XANA was gone, they could finally be normal school kids again.

Jim was teaching the principles of basketball to his students.

"Now, basketball, or B-ball as some say it nowadays, is a skill, acquired through hard work, practice, guts, speed, stamina, and strength." said Jim as he was instructing the class. "Observe." He threw the ball from the 3-point zone straight into the basket.

"You know, I was in a professional basketball team once." he added.

"Really? What happened?" Herve asked.

Like always, when asked a question like this, Jim said: "Well... I, uh...I'd rather not talk about it. Anyway, line up." He threw the ball to Odd. "Della Robia, you get first crack. Let's see how fast you guys can sink it."

After class, at lunch, Mr. Delmas, Sissi's father, and the principal of Kadic Jr. High, made an announcement:

"Remember; the big graduation ceremony is next Saturday at 9:00 sharp."

That night, the gang was talking about what would happen when they would get to high school.

"Maybe, through a strange twist of fate, we'll all get enrolled in the same school." Odd stated.

"Thankfully, XANA is out of the picture, so we can finally be normal kids again." Yumi added.

"Yeah. Well, see ya tomorrow, guys. We got that big test tomorrow and this time we're not going to miss this because of our now-gone hero business." said Jeremy.

"Later, guys." said William. Then they all left.

Little did Jeremy Belpois, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishyama, Odd Della Robia, Aelita Hopper, William Dunbar, or even their new companion Sissi Delmas know what would lie in store for them on that next day would be something that would change their lives, not to mention the way they would look at Jeremy, forever.

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What WILL happen next? Only time(or at least chapter 1) will tell.

JeremyX out!


	2. Chapter 1: The Breakout

Chapter 1: The Breakout

It was a cold night, only one cloud half-covering the moon. A lone armored truck was traveling down a dark narrow road with no trees, houses, or anything along the way. The truck did not make any noises to intrude the silence, but it moved like it was gliding over the asphalt. Five minutes later, the transport approached a gigantic metallic gate surrounding a shadowy compound. The truck soon stopped near a security camera posted at the top of the gate. The driver's window rolled down and the driver showed the camera a bronze badge on his wallet. Three seconds after, the gate opened, allowing the driver to enter the compound.

"_Welcome, Agent Beklin."_ said a voice from the intercom.

The driver put the badge back in his wallet, rolled up the window, and proceeded to drive towards the gates of the compound. Within a few more minutes, the driver stopped, having reached the main gate. The compound now loomed large over the truck; with its windows all blacked out and with its tall surveillance towers shining their searchlights at every direction. Two men dressed in black army suits with silver badges sewn on to their uniform shirts, walked out to greet the driver as he and the passenger with him unbuckled their seat belts, opened the doors, and exited the vehicle. The first man, who had combed back caramel brown hair and sharp gray eyes, looked older than the other agents, and whose uniform was more intricate than his companion's, walked up to the driver and passenger.

"Good evening, Greg," he said to the driver. "You too, Ryan." He mentioned the passenger, who also had a bronze badge on his shirt. "Rounded up tonight's garbage, have you?"

"Yes, sir," the driver responded. His name was Greg Beklin, and he and his partner, Ryan Shackloft, were fellow federal security agents for France's personal army. Greg was twenty years old with dark green hair and brown eyes, and Ryan was twenty-five with a bleached blonde crew cut and blue eyes. The agents motioned the two men at the gate to the back door of the truck. Greg and Ryan the opened the door, showing four men in scruffy clothing with ski masks on their heads, each one bound by metal handcuffs.

"One nightly street gang, all wrapped up to go. These aren't just your run-of-the-mill crooks, sir. These guys are with the _good_ bad guys. They used very convincing fake I.D. to get their hands on $100,000 worth of tech, weapons, and cash." Greg and Ryan got the men in the truck to their feet, and walked them out, harshly holding their arms while walking.

"Take it easy, man," one of the men said. "You're breaking my arm."

"And you're breaking my heart." Ryan retorted, tightening his grip on his own captive. This only served as the means to make the man wince all the more. "Your orders, sir?" Ryan asked the first man.

"Check them into Detention Cell 21 and get it over with," the man snorted. "I can't stand the sight of them."

"Gladly, General." Greg motioned for a guard patrol, which led the gang down a dark hall and into the shadows.

"Good," said the first man, the general. "Now then, gentlemen, I have something to show you both. Please follow me."

The first man, the one at the gate, was General Alistair Gordon, Commander of the Second Secret Service of France, and Honorary Sheriff of INTERPOL. He was about in his early forties, and he had worked in the service for thirteen years. His partner was Dan Larkson, Deputy Sheriff of National Security. He was in his late thirties, and had jet-black hair and jaded eyes. The building that they, Greg, and Ryan were in, and that Alistair was in charge of, was the French National Detention Center, an ultra-high-security prison specially built to hold the worst of the worst. General Gordon led his partner and the two agents down a long corridor where, at every turn, they were met with scowling, growling, and sneering of criminals, some of which were behind steel cell bars, and others were behind a one-way unbreakable glass wall. All of them lashed out at the men from their confinements, and growled at them.

"Nice collection, sir," Greg commented. "But what is it that interests you enough to only show it to two federal truckers, and not the federation itself?"

"I'm glad you asked, soldier," Alistair replied. "In fact, the answer to everyone's questions may just be beyond this door."

As he said this, he stopped, having reached a steel door with a keypad and several genetic locks barring the door.

"What's with this door, sir?" Ryan asked, clearly seeing the prison before and never having seen this particular door.

"Behind this door," The general replied after a pause, "is by far the worst scum that this government has ever scraped off the windshield of our country. This man was a very powerful force in one of the worst criminals ever to come from Europe. He was the new leader of the one and, thankfully, the only, criminal syndicate known as…

…The Black Cobras."

The very notion of these words was enough to give quite a shock to these men.

"Black Cobras?" Greg gasped, visibly shaken. "THE Black Cobras? The very criminal syndicate that, ever since World War II, has been dealing with and creating even worse terrorists than the Iraqis or Afghans?"

"One and the same," Alistair said, solemnly.

"I thought that they were just a legend," Ryan whispered.

"Well, Agent Shackloft," Alistair responded, "I can assure you that they are anything but legend."

He immediately punched ten numbers in the keypad and stepped up to the retinal scanner, handprint scanner, hair scanner, and lastly, a scanner that shot out a small wave of light that scanned his entire body. Afterwards, a microphone protruded from a console in the wall.

"Gordon, Alistair." The general spoke into the mike. It then retreated back into the wall as the door started to open.

"_Access granted._" came a voice from the console. The men proceeded through the door, into a long hallway that led outside, to the center of the compound. When the lights cleared, Greg and Ryan saw a box suspended a mile from the sea by steel cables. The only way to get to the box was a single walkway, enclosed by a tunnel and was also supported by steel cables. The box was completely empty except for a man in a white prisoner's uniform in what seemed to be a cage of steel, and the walls of the box itself seemed to be perfectly clear.

"This is the most inescapable containment unit ever made by man," General Gordon said to the agents as he led them down the walkway leading to the door of the cell.

"Reinforced steel framing, carbonium walls, everything needed to hold a crook like Geraldo Danzkhi, the new leader of the Black Cobras, and the stepson of the worst criminal that European secret government have ever caught…

…Kirk Fromm."

During his discussion with the men, Alistair slid a security card through a slot in the door and punched in a long and complicated series of letters and numbers. Afterwards, the door opened, and all three men entered the cell.

"Sir," Ryan asked, "who is Kirk Fromm?"

The general paused for a while, and then looked at the agent intently.

"He's the reason that the Germans almost won the war."

Upon hearing this, the agents were shocked. Almost immediately after he had said this to the agents, the general sat at a desk in the cell, and the prisoner sat at the seat across from him.

"Two years it's been, Danzkhi," Alistair said, harshly. "How long do you expect us to wait for you to give us the answers?"

"As long as it takes to drive you nuts, 'General'," the man snorted with a thick Russian accent. "Heh, and with all that's been going on here, I should keep you guessing on our goals for quite a while."

Alistair instantly rose from his chair and grabbed his captive by the neck. "I've been more than patient with you for far too long, and now I want some answers. If you won't willingly talk, I'll _make _you talk. Now, tell me, _what do you have to say for yourself? What is the Cobra's master plan?_"

At that, the agents were confused, for they had no clue as to what was going on, but after the general's temper subsided, his captive just snickered and raised his head to Alistair's face and whispered into the general's ear in a sing-song tone:

"They're _back…_"

Alistair took a step back, confused by this. In that instant, the man pulled up his sleeve to reveal a miniature detonator, timed to go off in fifteen seconds. The general went white.

"Get back!" he shouted at the agents, who, along with the general, quickly ran out of the cell and ducked behind the door. Then, Geraldo threw the bomb at the floor right at the zero mark, causing an explosion that made the diamond-hard floor shatter, sending pieces flying everywhere.

The men looked from behind the rubble, and noticed that Geraldo jumped out of the box through a new hole in the floor, and he shouted out, "So long, boys!"

Unlike what they expected, he did not fall to the sea. Instead, after a few moments of silence, they soon saw him floating up on a small wire, almost invisible. Then, a loud whirring noise came from the clouds. The men looked up to see that the noise came from a black helicopter that had just got there, almost as if the people driving it knew that the whole event would transpire.

Suddenly, a range of alarms flared to life all around the prison, which could be heard for a mile around. In a matter of seconds, every guard in the compound was on the scene, firing at the vehicle like their lives depended on it. Even the guards at the surveillance towers were firing their turrets like crazy. Unfortunately, amid the gunfire from all directions, the craft flew out of range and out of sight.

After a while, the two agents looked at the general. "Sir, are you okay?" Ryan asked.

"Don't worry about me," Alistair started, but was cut off by a ringing from his communicator. As he answered it, the image of Harold Augustus, the C.E.O. of the European Private Militia appeared on the screen.

"General Gordon," he said, "I received a priority alarm coming from your location. What is your situation?"

"Not good, sir," the general replied. "Geraldo has escaped thanks to a small explosive he rigged together over all this time and to a stealth helicopter that was lying in wait right over our heads. The Cobras sprung him out. They're the only ones who would or could. We froze off all of his other assets except for them. They must have been recruiting all these years under our noses just for this moment."

"I see…" the chief replied. "What is your plan of action?"

For a minute, Alistair did not answer. Then he said:

"There are only two people in this world who could answer that question, sir."

"Do you mean…_ them_?" the chief started.

"Yes, sir. I mean _them_. I'll let you know when they arrive at Camp Gideon." he finished.

"Understood." Harold replied. With that, the image disappeared, and General Gordon turned to the other guards and to the agents.

"You two," he said after a while to Ryan and Greg, "I need you to go to the address on this card, find the people who live there, and get them here as soon as possible." Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small card, the size of a business card, and handed it to Ryan.

"Who lives here?" Greg asked, looking at the card. "This is a civilian address."

"Who lives there, agent?" the general replied, then solemnly added:

"Just…

the last hope for the free world."


	3. Chapter 2: A Message and a Mission

Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko

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Chapter 2: A Message and a Mission

Jeremy Belpois had never been one to get a good night's sleep after days of fighting against XANA, but with him gone, there was nothing stopping him from sawing as many logs in his sleep as he wanted. However, this night, he would get one last unwanted awakening.

_Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…_

"Hrmn?" he mumbled.

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…

It took him another second to realize that the beeping noise came from his laptop. Reluctantly, he reached towards his nightstand, put on his glasses, got out of bed, and stumbled to his desk, where his laptop was docked. He plopped down in his chair and opened his computer, thereby revealing a new message from an unmarked sender.

"Huh? 'Sender Unknown'? Who would be sending me a message at this hour?"

It was unusual for anyone to get a message at 3 AM, let alone a Jr. High student like Jeremy who was just about to turn fourteen. However, the subject of the message is what really got his attention. It read "IMPORTANT – TO JEREMY BELPOIS."

"Okay…this guy clearly knows me, so this isn't a telemarketer," he stated. "Better see what it says, then."

With that, he opened the message. It had only fifteen words:

_Come to the factory at once. Don't bring the others. We need to talk alone._

Jeremy did a double take. The sender's information box showed nothing whatsoever, but somehow he had knowledge of Jeremy and his friends' previous escapades. His eyes widened when he noticed an all-too familiar eyelike mark on the bottom of the message.

|  
(O)  
/ | \

_What the…The Eye of Lyoko?_ Jeremy thought._ Who is this guy, and how does he know about the factory, or what the others and I were doing there?_

He then opened his dorm room door, looked both ways, and shut the door.

"Okay," he decided. "If I'm going to find out who the heck this guy is and what he wants, I have to head for the factory."

With that, he quickly changed out of his pajamas into his signature brick red turtleneck, tan sweatpants with a neon blue stripe running down each seam line, and his gray laceless shoes. Then he quietly opened his door, and sneaked out through the hallways and made his way from the dormitories to the boiler room, which housed the secret shortcut to the factory that he and his friends used when they couldn't leave the school. He had to take great care not to wake up any of the students, or worse, a teacher. Fortunately for him, though, his stature was no problem in sneaking past the rooms to the secret tunnel. The passage led down a long earthen staircase to another door connecting the tunnel with the city's sewer network. Next to the door lay Jeremy's old scooter, surprisingly not even slightly rusted from not being used for six months.

He took a deep breath. "Well, here goes."

He unlocked his scooter and rode down the long pathway to the factory on the edge of town. Within a minute's riding, he reached a long ladder leading up to a manhole. He locked his scooter back and climbed up the ladder, moved the manhole, and ran to the entrance of the old building. Four long cables dangled from the ceiling, which the gang used to get into the factory. Jeremy jumped, grabbing one of the cables, and slid down it, landing softly on the cement floor. Just then his phone vibrated twice, which meant that he got a text message. He then opened it, and read:

_Jeremy, turn on the supercomputer and wait for my message. Don't worry about using the headset._

Realizing this was his only chance of getting info, he then walked the rustic elevator and pushed the large red button. This caused the doors to close, and caused the elevator to descend into the lowest room in the factory, the room of the supercomputer's operation module. Jeremy pulled a lever, causing a door on the floor to open up and raise up a large cylindrical device about fifteen feet high, and at its base, about five feet in diameter. It was mostly black, but was striped up and down by silicone.

"Never thought I'd see this thing again," Jeremy said to himself, "much less turn it back on. But if I want to find out the source of this mystery message, then I have little choice."

With that said, he walked to a large switch on the module, and switched it to the ON position. A series of whirring, clicking and whining noises came from the module as it booted up. All along the outside of the machine, the silicone glowed a bright gold as electricity surged through the device. Pushing his glasses back into position, he reentered the elevator and ascended to the computer room.

The large, metallic green room was cast into a pale bluish light because of the light emanating from the computer's five screens. Jeremy walked over to the machine and sat down in the chair, which moved on a rail to the screens. He then noticed something blinked in the top left screen. It read: "NEW MESSAGE."

"Well," Jeremy said, "here we go. Now to find out just who called me out to this place in the dead of night and why they called me."

He clicked on the icon, and a message popped up, saying: _Get in the scanner and I will tell you everything._

Jeremy had only used the scanner on himself three times. The first time was so he would be protected from the effects of his time-traveling memory wiper that they used whenever XANA made a major impact on their world. The second time was when he went to Lyoko for the first time to save the gang from one of XANA's illusions. The third time, which he said would be his last, was when he tried unsuccessfully to do a training session on Lyoko, which resulted only in his butt getting kicked by a team of what they called Megatanks. Needles to say, he did not feel so keen on scanning himself again, but he knew that he had to, if he wanted answers, so he set up the auto-scanning sequence and rode the elevator down to the scanner room, which was between the computer room and the module room.

They were the same as when he saw them last time. The scanners were three cylinders, six feet tall, were connected to the ceiling with thick, black tube-like wires.

"I never thought I'd ever have to set foot in these things again," he thought out loud as he set foot in the scanner, "but in order to know who called me and why, I have to do it."

The door closed, and the world became dark for a split second before Jeremy was engulfed in light.

He was not on Lyoko, as he expected, but in the living room of a house that looked familiar, but remembered it looking different. He didn't realize where he was until he took a closer look at his surroundings. The room he was in was not very large, and there were two tall bookcases on one wall, and a medium sized sand green couch with two brown circular pillows resting on both arms at the other wall. In the center of the room was a large grand piano, and seated at the piano was a man who seemed to be in his mid-40s, with a mop of gray hair wearing a large white lab coat and khakis. Noticing his new guest, the man turned to face Jeremy. When he did, Jeremy gasped in shock at the man's facial features. Though he did not look very old, he had thick dark glasses, a bushy dark gray mustache, and a short light gray beard. All were the makings to make Jeremy gape at a face he never thought he'd see again.

"It's good to see you again, Jeremy Belpois." The man said, whose voice confirmed Jeremy's suspicions.

"Franz… Franz Hopper?" said Jeremy, surprised beyond words that he was looking at the creator of Lyoko and XANA, as well as Aelita's father. "But…but this can't be possible! You were killed by XANA! How can you be standing right here?"

"He'd like me to think that I'm dead," Franz responded, "but I'm far from it. As for how I appear before you, I must confess that this is not really myself. What you see before you is a data based projection of me. I am still trapped in the network."

"Wait a minute," Jeremy said, "if what you say is true, then how were you there when you helped me upload my program that destroyed XANA's Replikas?"

"Once again, I was not really there. What your friends saw was a digital clone of me." Franz answered.

Jeremy paused for a while, and thought that what he said would explain a lot, but he added aloud, and very sternly,

"You know something? When that clone was destroyed, I couldn't stop your daughter from crying over the thought that her father was gone forever."

Franz looked down. "Well, I am sorry about that part, but saying that I would really come was the only thing I could think of that would draw out XANA."

"Well, since he's gone, it worked," Jeremy added, "but why did you call me here instead of sending me a message about how you escaped?"

"For three reasons," he replied, "First, I wanted you to see that I was all right with your own eyes before telling the others, especially Aelita. Second, there is something important you must know about XANA and your involvement in all of this."

"Like what?"

"Have you ever wondered where he got his powers from?" Franz looked at Jeremy in a serious manner.

"Well, you made him, so you should know." Jeremy asked. "Since you kept him from breaking into other worldwide systems, he took his energy from the supercomputer. When we fought him, he even got a supercharge whenever we made those jump backs in time with the Return to the Past program."

"You are half correct," he replied, "He did draw part of his powers from the supercomputer when he was still chained to it, but he did not get any power from the jump backs in time, at least from the jump backs themselves."

Jeremy was confused. "What do you mean, 'not from the jump backs themselves'? You mean that he had another source that we didn't know about?"

Franz nodded.

"What was it?"

Mr. Hopper took of his glasses, showing Jeremy his dark brown eyes looking at him intently. "I'm looking at it."

Jeremy stepped back, shocked. "Me? What do you mean?"

"Didn't you ever wonder how you kept getting weaker and weaker whenever you used the computer's headset?" Franz asked. "You always thought that, because he was a computerized entity, that he was taking his energy from an electronic source. But did you ever think that he took his strength from a more, shall we say, _organic_ source?"

Jeremy paused for a second. This was almost too much for him to take in at once. All this time he thought that he took his energy from draining the supercomputer's operating power, and before that he thought that he took energy from Aelita because of a supposed virus that XANA implanted in her when Franz shut down the supercomputer.

"I know what you're thinking," said Franz, "but the fact is that XANA _did_ infect someone with a virus to drain their energy, but it wasn't Aelita or any of your friends, Jeremy. It was _you_."

"But how?" Jeremy asked, almost immediately after Franz had finished talking.

"Simple," Franz replied, "XANA infected the headset with a virus that would become like a parasite to whoever first activated the supercomputer after I shut it down ten years ago, which would be you. This virus would take the energy of this person and make it XANA's whenever they used the headset."

"That would explain why I always felt lightheaded after I used the headset," Jeremy stated. "But what's the third reason you called me here?"

Franz was silent for a moment, and then he looked out the window. "You fought a great battle against arguably the most evil digital threat the world has ever faced, but a bigger test awaits. Old and familiar enemies will resurface and you will need all the strength you can get for the coming battle."

"Wait, what 'battle'?" Jeremy asked. "What are you talking about?"

"You know very well what, or should I say _who_, I'm talking about…_Captain_."

Jeremy tensed for a second. "I said I was done with them. I did my job, and now I want to enjoy a normal life. One that isn't just fighting foreign crooks one day and jailing domestic ones the next day."

Franz put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "You knew that it wouldn't last forever. You knew you'd have to someday take up the code again and fight for your country. Well, whether you like it or not, that day is today."

"How do you know?" Jeremy demanded, shrugging off Franz's gesture.

"The ones you defeated are back." Franz replied. "They're here to have their revenge on the one who took away their freedom, and that would be you."

"WHAT? The Cobras? They're back?" Jeremy shouted. "How? I thought that they were gone for good! I made sure of it myself when I carted their leader away by myself!"

"Well," Hopper said, "apparently, he learned how to escape from a maximum security prison in only two years. That's quite an accomplishment considering he had absolutely nothing to begin with and nothing to finish with. The fact that he was able to escape without any outside help whatsoever must mean something was driving him to want to escape."

"Like the thought of the heads of me, my father, and his father on his wall!" Jeremy retorted. "You, of all people, should know who he is and what he is capable of, not to mention our family's history with him! That's why I was drawn into the conflict in the first place! Now you mean to tell me he's free?"

"Unfortunately, I tell no lie when I say this," Franz said with his head hanging low, "but there is someone who can take him down for good this time, and that's you."

"I was a completely different person back then," Jeremy said, looking down. "I don't have nearly the amount of strength I had in those days, and I don't think I'll ever get them back…" Just then a light in his head went off. "That's why you called me here, isn't it? You've got the energy that XANA stole from me, don't you?"

Franz Hopper said nothing, but reached into his lab coat and pulled out a glowing blue orb, and showed it to Jeremy.

"How is this going to-" Jeremy started, but then, without a warning of any sort, the orb flew out of Franz Hopper's hand and shoved itself into Jeremy's chest, causing him to stumble back and land on the couch.

"What was that for?" Jeremy shouted, as he stood up again. "I thought this was going to help me, not hurt me!"

"That was just a side effect from having a part of you that was taken out of you put back in you again. You won't feel any change until a few minutes later." Franz Hopper replied. Suddenly, he shot straight up like he'd been hit by a tazer. "Sorry, Jeremy, but I have to go. The supercomputer will be shut back down when you leave."

"Wait," Jeremy said. "Where are you going? When and how are you coming back?"

"Just like you now have a mission, so do I." Franz said.

Just then Jeremy saw two other figures in the room with him. One was a ten-year-old girl with long olive green hair, violet-blue eyes and a plain white dress. The second was a twelve-year-old boy with pistachio green hair, clear blue eyes, and a white Japanese schoolboy's uniform.

"So he's the Jeremy you always talk about, Mr. Hopper?" the girl asked.

"Yes, that's him." Franz replied.

"I don't get it," Jeremy said. "What is this mission and who are these kids?"

"My name is Amber," the girl answered.

"And I'm Noah." the boy added.

"Nice to meet you, I'm sure," Jeremy stated, "but this doesn't answer the question. What is this so-called mission?"

"I've been assigned to rescue certain people throughout time who have met their end too soon." Franz answered.

"Assigned?" Jeremy asked. "By whom?"

"I'm sorry, Jeremy," Franz said, "but I can't explain everything now. But know this: I'll soon be able to leave this cyber world and return to the real world as soon as I find the final 'person who time destroyed.'"

"Huh?" Jeremy asked. Suddenly the world around him began to flicker and get brighter. "What's happening?" he shouted.

"We're being pulled into a virtual wormhole! This is where we part for now, Jeremy. But don't worry! I'll be back before you know it! And tell Aelita and the others I'm okay! Goodbye for now!"

The light suddenly became even brighter, and as Jeremy covered his eyes, Franz Hopper, the kids, the living room, and the whole world vanished. Then Jeremy blacked out. Three seconds later, he realized he was falling out one of the scanners. Three seconds after that, all the lights in the room went out, and the whirring noises stopped.

"Okay, that was weird." Jeremy said after a brief pause. Then he glanced at his watch and saw…

"5 AM?" he shouted. "I was in there that long? I'd better get back before they notice I'm gone!"

Quick as he could, he retraced his steps, up the elevator, through the sewer system, through the secret tunnel, and back to his room. It was only after he arrived there did he look back at his watch, and when he did, he was surprised.

_Three past five?_ Jeremy thought to himself. _But I've never gone that fast before! This can't be possible!_

_Or can it?_

Then it struck him. He'd been going faster than he used to go when he still used the computer's headset. Hardly daring to believe what he witnessed, he took of his shirt and pants and looked in his wardrobe mirror, and what he saw was quite a shock. His hair and face looked the same as before, but his body had undergone a suprising transformation. His arms and legs were thick and muscular, instead of thin and stringy. His chest muscles clearer than they were ever shown when he fought XANA. It was then that he realized that this was what Franz Hopper meant when he said that he restored Jeremy's energy that XANA took from him. Weary from this newfound encounter, as well as lack of sleep, he fell back onto his bed and fell straight to sleep.

* * *

Sorry about the delay... my old computer broke and my new one dosen't do internet. I promise to update more often!

-JeremyX out!


	4. Chapter 3: A PreGraduation Suprise

Chapter 3: A Pre-Graduation Present

"Good morning, Kadic Jr. High! This is Milly and Tamiya in the Morning here to-"

_*Click*_

The sound of the school's private station woke Jeremy up for him to realize that he was still in his day clothes, which were quite sweaty from the previous night's escapade. After switching his alarm clock off, he proceeded to change out of his dirty clothes and into fresher ones. He then made his way to the shower room, to get clean. After brushing his teeth, and after he walked over to the shower stall, when he took his shirt off, he saw his reflection. His newly regenerated muscles were still there.

"So it wasn't a dream," he said to himself. "My strength is back, and so is Franz Hopper. I have to tell them, but not until the ceremony on Sunday."

After his shower, he joined the others for breakfast in the cafeteria.

"One of everything please, Rosa," Jeremy said, addressing the school cafeteria lady. "I'm on empty big time."

"You feeling alright, sonny?" she said as she cocked her head at him. "You never ask for this much food."

"I know. I guess my hormones are finally starting to kick in." Jeremy added.

Rosa shrugged. "I hope Odd's not becoming an influence on your digestive system, Jeremy. It won't be good for you." After taking his food, which put what was on Odd's plate to shame it its volume, he joined his friends at their table. No sooner than he sat down that they looked at him like he was _The Thing That Ate Chicago Twice_.

"Dude," Odd gawked, "even I know that's a lot of food. I will be amazed if you can really stomach that."

"I agree with Rosa," Ulrich added. "Are you sure you're okay, Jeremy?"

"I'm fine, guys," Jeremy said, while gorging himself. "No need to worry. Just going through a little change. That's what puberty is, after all." He added with his mouth full.

"Well, if I were you," Yumi chided. "I wouldn't eat that much before the big gym test at 9:30 this morning."

"Oh, that was today?" Jeremy asked. "I thought it was Tuesday."

"Uh, Jeremy? _Today_ is Tuesday." William said. "Are you sure your brain's working?"

"Sorry, guys," Jeremy admitted. "I still haven't been getting enough sleep lately."

"Well, whether you like it or not," Ulrich commented, "if you don't wake up soon, Jim's test is gonna give you a rude awakening like never before, Einstein."

_Right, _Jeremy remembered. _The big tests from Monday to Thursday this week, then a day off on Friday, and then the graduation ceremony this Sunday._

Jeremy looked at his watch, and it showed 8:16 AM, so he had well over an hour for the food to digest, so he didn't need to worry about eating too much. Soon after he finished, which was almost like two meals in one, Jeremy went back to his dorm room After he changed into his gray gym pants and sweatshirt, he raced to the gym to meet with the others, who were lining up with the other students for their final aerobics test.

"All right, people," Jim started, "you've all come a long way since the year began, and I know you all think that you have improved better than you think, but today we will see exactly how far you've come and will judge you accordingly. Now, don't think of this as a final exam, just think of it as a small 10% of your grade."

"Great. No pressure, right?" Odd whispered under his breath loud enough for the others to hear. Unfortunately for him, Jim heard him too.

"Well, if you're so sure of yourself, Della Robia, let's see what you got on the obstacle course."

The entire class snickered and a few students even shouted "Busted!" as Odd reluctantly walked over to the start of Jim's personally designed obstacle course, set up with twin lines of tires, a rope-climb wall, and a rock wall, all in the middle of the school's quarter-mile racetrack, on which Jim set up hurdles, and was part of the course. The mere sight of it served as the means to make Odd's stomach churn even more as he took his position.

"You got five minutes, hot shot," Jim barked. "Starting…now!"

He pushed the red button on his stopwatch, and Odd took off. He stumbled once on the tires, he scaled the small rock wall with a few pauses to breathe, but he climbed the rope wall like a caffeine-stricken spider. When he started the hurdle track, he tripped on the first one, but got over the others without any problems. After he finished, Odd grinned. "Fast enough for you?"

"Well, well, well. Four and a half minutes on the nose," Jim whistled, looking at his stopwatch. "Not bad for a smart-aleck. Belpois! You're up next!"

He pointed at Jeremy, who then jogged to the starting line.

"Alright," Jim started. "Here's a challenge for you. All you gotta do is beat Della Robia's time and you get extra credit, and I know how much you would like that, smart guy."

Some of the students gasped and whispered things like "Faster than four minutes? He can't do that! He's doesn't have that kind of body!" The others gulped, and Aelita looked like she was going to be sick. Jeremy just took a deep breath, crouched into a runner's position, and waited for Jim's signal. _Here goes nothing,_ he thought. _If I have what I think I have, then everyone, including myself, will be in for a big surprise._

"Ready…set…GO!"

What happened next was something no one expected. Jeremy took off, hopping through the tires almost twice as quickly as Odd did, but without tripping up or pausing. After a two second pause, he climbed the rope wall with the same speed and without pausing or messing up. After coming down the other side, he hitched himself to the rock wall and scaled it in no time, and without falling or slowing down. Once he rappelled back down, he took his start at the track and, at the sound of the gun, took off like he was shot out of the gun, jumping over every hurdle with near-professional precision and speed. At the end of the track, he stopped, sweaty, but filled with excitement he hadn't felt in a long time. As Jim and the other students stopped gawking at Jeremy, Jim looked at his stopwatch, and gawked even more.

"This…this is…I can't believe it!" Jim gasped. "Three minutes exactly! He almost beat the school record!"

This exclamation made all the students gasp and stare even more. They all said among each other, "Whoa! How did he do that? I've never seen him go that fast before! What's gotten into him?" Even Jeremy's friends looked at him almost like he was some kind of a freak.

"What?" he asked. "I said I was going through a little change, didn't I?"

"Well, yeah," Ulrich agreed, "but like this? You could never do stuff like that to save your life! How did you do that just now?"

"To tell you the truth," Jeremy conceded, "I have no idea. I just did a few practices, and they were more like what Odd did, but with a few more mistakes. I guess I was just lucky this time."

Jeremy knew he couldn't keep this up for long. His friends were not that stupid. They could tell by their expressions that they knew he was hiding something. But before they could ask him, they heard a faint siren that got louder and louder, until the students and Jim saw the source: a police cruiser had parked at the edge of the campus, with the lights flashing. Just then, Jean-Pierre Delmas, the principal of the school, and his daughter Elizabeth, or Sissi, as he and the students called her, came out to meet the officer who had just exited the car. Jeremy, the students, and teachers gathered around to see the commotion.

"Good morning, officer," Mr. Delmas opened. "How can I help you?"

The officer was tall and thin, with caramel brown skin and a thin black mustache. He ignored Mr. Delmas' greeting and pointed his finger at Jeremy, saying:

"That boy over there, the blonde in the gray with the glasses, is believed to have possession of a shipment of illegal drugs that disappeared from our stores this morning."

This statement made Jeremy look startled, and made everyone, especially his friends, gasp in shock. "WHAT?"

"No way!" Sissi instantly shouted. "He may be smart but he's not smart enough to do that! And more importantly, he's not a crook!"

"I agree! This is absurd!" Mr. Delmas protested. "Our Jeremy would never do something like that! He's not that kind of person!"

"Well, I have a search warrant that would prove otherwise," the officer retorted, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and showing it to Mr. Delmas.

"Come here, kid," the officer said, grabbing Jeremy's arm and pulling him away. "You're coming down to the station with me."

"Hold on," said Jeremy, yanking his arm out of the officer's grasp.

"Are you resisting me, boy?" the officer asked, reaching for his cuff holster.

"There's just something I have to say to you, officer." Jeremy responded.

For a second, the officer stiffened, as if he was scared, then barked, "Okay, but you'd better make it quick, kid."

"Thank you, officer." Jeremy said. And then the worry vanished from his face, replaced by a stern glare as he said to the officer,

"How dumb do you think I am?"

Before anyone could respond, Jeremy gave the officer a quick and powerful right cross to the chest, which made the officer crumple long enough for Jeremy to lunge at his belt, seize his pistol, grab the officer by his uniform, and point the barrel of the gun under his chin. He then said, in a very harsh and low tone:

"Okay. Here's how it's going to go down: Either you tell me what I want to know, or you will feel the barrel of this gun against your skin and nothing after."

This reaction was met with an even bigger surprise than when the officer first spoke.

"What in the world do you think you're doing, Jeremy?" Mr. Delmas shouted. "You just assaulted a police officer and are threatening him at gunpoint! What's gotten into you?"

"Would real cops be caught wearing something like this, Mr. Delmas?" Jeremy answered, while he took something off of the officer's left hand and handed it to Mr. Delmas: a silver ring with a small device carved on the front, a twisting, curved snake that, unlike the rest of the ring, was jet-black.

"A ring?" said Sissi, still in shock. "So?"

She, like the others, didn't think the ring was all that important. However, her father looked like he had seen a ghost.

"That ring…" he started. "It can't be…"

"It can and it is, sir," Jeremy said, solemnly.

"I don't get it, dad," Sissi said. "What's so bad about that ring?"

"Nothing by itself," Jeremy said. "but if the one who's wearing it also has this…"

Jeremy pulled up the left sleeve of the officer's uniform to reveal a tattoo of a black hooded cobra winding itself around his arm, with its head pointing towards his wrist.

"…it's bad." He finished.

"Both are the marks of a seriously bad crime network," Mr. Delmas stated. "one that was built in this very city and in this very neighborhood over sixty years ago and still is around to this day."

"So, he's a fake cop?" Jim asked.

"Exactly." Mr. Delmas confirmed.

"But how does that explain the warrant?" Ms. Hertz, the math teacher asked.

Jeremy said to Mr. Delmas, "Hold it up to the light. There should be a watermark in the shape of an eagle on the bottom left-hand corner of the paper, but on this, it's not there."

He held it up and then, after a few second's silence, he said, "He's right. There's no eagle. And I know that eagle's used in the police."

"Th-they told me to be careful around you, and run after I got you…" the false officer shuddered, in a different voice than he used in his façade.

Jeremy reapplied the barrel of the gun back near the man's chin. "Now you know why. Now, to my question: where are the real cops?"

"One in the t-trunk, and the other i-in the back," the false cop stuttered.

"Give me your keys." Jeremy demanded, and the man did.

"Mr. Delmas, could you come here, please?" Jeremy asked. When he did, Jeremy handed the gun to Mr. Delmas.

"If he makes a move, do what you have to do to stop him." Jeremy said calmly.

"Right," Mr. Delmas agreed, pointing the barrel at the man again while Jeremy handcuffed him and tried to find the key to unlock the trunk. No sooner had he started than he found the key, unlocked the trunk, opened the door, and found, in the trunk, a man in his mid-thirties, bound, gagged with duct tape, blindfolded, and wearing nothing but a white undershirt and black jeans. Jeremy took off his bindings, which weren't too tight, carefully took the duct tape off of his mouth, and helped him out of the trunk, while Mr. Delmas still pointed the gun at the impostor.

When Jeremy brought the real cop out of the trunk, the whole crowd was in another shock, for they never saw anything like this, not in the movies, or even on the news. Then, Jeremy unlocked the side door and brought out the other cop, whose arms and legs were handcuffed together, and gagged with a rope, but still in his uniform. This brought yet another shock to the crowd. After undoing his bondages, and after the real cops tied the fake cop up, the impostor laughed.

"It's, too late, hero," he grinned, half crazy. "You were gonna go down whether you got in the car or not."

"What does that-" Jeremy started, the stopped, almost as soon as the words exited his mouth. "Wait a minute…"

He closed his eyes and heard a sound that made his heart skip a beat: a certain methodic beeping noise he knew all too well. He opened his eyes and saw on the police car's dashboard a flat silver colored object with a display screen that blinked red every second. He stood as stiff as if he was frozen for half a second, and then grabbed his captive, dashed towards the campus, and shouted loud enough for everyone to hear him:

"The car is rigged! Everyone, get back now! IT'S GONNA BLOW!"

Instantly, Mr. Delmas and the teachers got all of the students as far away from the curb as they could, while Jeremy let the real officers take custody of the impostor in the flight. Everyone was about fifty feet away from the car when the real officers shouted,

"HIT THE DIRT!"

As soon as they spoke, everyone did so, and then, without warning, there was a bright flash, and the world went up in smoke.

After a few seconds passed, Jeremy looked around, nothing had been severely damaged, and no one seemed to be hurt. _Talk about too close for comfort,_ he thought. He then called out,

"Is everyone all right?"

A few seconds later, he saw Yumi and the others pick themselves of the ground, and heard Mr. Delmas' voice behind him, saying,

"Everything's okay, Jeremy. I looked around. No one was hurt."

"Thank God," Jeremy sighed as he turned around. When he did, he saw just how big the explosion really was. The cloud of smoke was at least fifteen feet high, and there was hardly anything left of the car at all. When the fake cop said that "they" intended to take Jeremy out, they weren't kidding around. These guys clearly meant business. A few minutes later the teachers gathered around and looked at Jeremy and Mr. Delmas.

"Mr. Delmas," Jim asked, "What…just happened?"

For a long time Mr. Delmas couldn't answer, but a second later he said,

"Don't worry about the students, Jim. I'll call their parents and have them pick them up."

"What do you mean, sir?" Jim asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Mr. Delmas said. "This school has just been attacked. It isn't safe for the students anymore. I'll notify the students and teachers, that until further notice, this school is now closed."

"But who attacked us, sir?" Ms. Hertz asked. "I think we deserve to know that much."

Mr. Delmas sighed. "I'll tell you all you need to know soon enough, but I need to be with my daughter and her friends, and then I need to make a few phone calls."

With that, the teachers conceded to leave Mr. Delmas alone as he rejoined with Sissi and walked over to Jeremy and the others.

"Okay," Odd started, "would someone please tell me what the heck just happened with the car bomb and the fake cop?"

"I can," Jeremy started, "but first, Mr. Delmas will call our parents and tell them what happened and that we're okay. Then we're all going to my place. I'll explain everything there."

"We've never been to your house before, Jeremy," Yumi said. "What's going on?"

Jeremy was silent.

"Jeremy," Aelita asked, with her hand on his shoulder, "Is there something else you need to tell us?"

Jeremy took a deep breath. "I haven't told you guys everything about me. That was just because it wasn't important, and it didn't concern you, but now the time for hiding my past is over. When you guys step foot in my house and learn about my past, you will never look at me the same way ever again."

"What do you mean, Jeremy?" asked Yumi, completely bewildered.

Jeremy responded by taking out his wallet and showing them a certain card with a picture of him and a logo of an eagle on a flag of three vertical stripes: blue on the left, white in the middle, and red on the right.

"I saw that symbol when I was with my father on a business trip." William spoke up. That's the insignia of the Police Nationale, our equivalent of America's Secret Service!"

"What does that mean?" Ulrich blurted.

"My full name," Jeremy said after a pause, "is Jeremiah Marquis Belpois, Special Captain of the National Secret Police, 216th Order of King St. Louis, 4th Division. Location: Bordeaux, France. If you want to know more about what we do, and you should if you want tomorrow to come, then follow me and assist your country in what will be its most grueling domestic war yet."


	5. Chapter 4: Unwritten History, Untold War

Chapter 4: Unlisted Armies, Unwritten Histories, and an Untold War

Over their time together, Jeremy, Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, William, Sissi, and Aelita had learned some strange things about each other. Some of it was very interesting, but some of it, in their opinions, was better left unspoken. But when Jeremy announced that he was a secret agent in France's milita, it was something that, in his friends' opinions, topped all the other stories that they shared with each other. This was received by multiple reactions by the gang. Yumi's eyes got noticeably bigger, Odd's jaw dropped farther than anyone thought possible, and Ulrich and William, both normally calm, now jolted in complete astonishment.

What was even more amazing was that as he was saying this and before the others could say anything in reaction, a long, sleek, black limousine drove up to the curb and stopped right next to Jeremy. The driver's door opened up, which was on the right side, and the man that got out was about in his mid thirties with a brushed-back mop of brown hair. Although the gang had only seen him once, they knew him well enough when they saw him for Aelita to respond:

"You're Jeremy's dad, right?"

"That's right," The man grinned. "But please call me Michael."

"How did you get here?" Ulrich asked.

"Jeremy called me this morning," Mr. Belpois responded, "he said something about big changes and about something bad happening at the…"

The last word he meant to say never left his mouth as he turned his head and saw exactly what happened in the last ten minutes. The smoke was still billowing from the wreckage at the other side of the curb.

"Whoa," he whistled after a long pause. "You weren't kidding, son. This really _is_ a big change."

"When you said something bad was going to happen, did you mean like what just happened here?" Ulrich asked.

Jeremy's dad paused for a moment, and then said, "Uh, yeah, that's exactly what I meant. What could possibly be worse than my son and other kids getting attacked at their school? There's no need to worry too much about anything else."

Just then Jeremy shot him a serious look. "That isn't necessary anymore, Dad. A fake cop was trying to take me into that car," he said, pointing to the smoldering wreckage, "but I exposed him after I held him at gunpoint. Also, after I freed the real cops and got everyone to safety, I showed them my wallet card. Now they want to know, and frankly, they _need_ to know."

Mr. Belpois quickly caught on. "Oh," he said, looking around at the others. "I see. Very well, then. In that case, we'd all better head home." He opened the passenger door, and motioned the gang to climb inside. "If you really want to know more, then climb in, and we'll head to my house," Jeremy said as he climbed in. The gang, hearing all of this decided to get in the car, but they still in shock over the past hour's event, and had no idea what would happen next.

As Jeremy's dad got back in the driver's seat and pulled away, the gang took a better look a their surroundings. The inside of the limo was not just two rows of seats, as they expected, but there was a small table about two feet tall, three feet wide, and fifteen feet long. A single thick leg in the middle suspended the table, and the top was two inches thick. The sections of the leg revealed that it was a retractable table built into the car. Jeremy sat down at the head of the table, folded his hands, and took a deep breath.

"There's something you should know about me and my family," he started. "As you may have already noticed, we're not really an average family."

"You could've fooled me," William commented.

Jeremy sighed, slightly amused, but mostly troubled. "The thing is…my family on my father's side is descended from King Louis XVI."

"Is that King St. Louis?" Aelita asked.

"No, Louis IX is King St. Louis," Jeremy answered, "but Louis XVI would have been almost as good, if all went as he planned."

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Odd asked. "Wasn't he, like, the worst king we ever had? That American, Alan Cummings, made a song about mocking him that went to the tune of our national anthem, didn't he?"

"That's what Robespierre would want the world to believe," Jeremy responded. "In truth, he was one of history's most tragic leaders. This is because he and Marie weren't really bad guys, but were portrayed that way by the nobles because they were really behaving like spoiled brats who got their toys taken away because the nobles were taking the money buying their expeditions and vacations from the poor. But Louis and Marie Antoinette reduced taxes for the poor and made the nobles start paying their taxes."

"I've never heard or read about this in any history class before," Ulrich said. "How do you know that what you say is true?"

"Because he's my great-grandfather to the seventh degree." Jeremy answered solemnly. He then showed them a picture of a very old-looking book that seemed to very well have been made in the 18th century. "The book of his history has been passed down from generation to generation ever since Louis' daughter, Princess Maria Therese. She was my great-grandmother to the sixth degree, whose name was changed when she married my great-grandfather to the sixth degree, Francois Belpois. He was a nephew of General Marquis de Lafayette."

"Wasn't he a general in George Washington's army in the American Revolutionary War?" Yumi asked.

"Yes," Jeremy answered. "Ever since him, and when Marie Therese was rescued by Francis from being deported to Austria to be used as a tool in Austrian politics, my family has been dedicated to the pursuit of truth and justice in France."

"But if this is true, then where does Marie Antoinette's 'let them eat cake' speech come from?" Ulrich asked.

"That infamous statement," Jeremy answered, "was made by the wife of Louis XV, who _was_ a bad king. His wife was also named Marie and was just as bad as he was, but that's not the point I'm trying to make."

"Well, what is?" Yumi asked.

"The point is," he answered, "is that my family has had a history of being strong fighters in times of great suffering in the world. We've fought in every major conflict from the American Revolutionary War to World War II. But what we did in World War II was never told to anyone outside of the French Army for secrecy's sake."

"Why's that?" Aelita asked.

"Because what we fought after the war ended was something possibly more terrifying than the Communist Soviets and the Nazis put together." Jeremy answered.

This statement was met with another long pause. After a few seconds, Ulrich spoke up again.

"I'm confused. What could have possibly been worse than a madman hell-bent on ruling the world and annihilating anyone who wouldn't swear absolute loyalty to him, or a people who were and still are dedicated to destroying every system of power in the world, no matter if they were good or not, and replacing them with a system of intolerance and immorality?"

"A domestic entity who idolized the aforementioned people and were determined to bring their goals to fruition." Jeremy answered. "The difference between the original leaders and these new followers is that the followers had the resources necessary to do what their idols had failed to do."

"Who are they?" William asked.

"Think of every villainous group in history and in the present," Jeremy answered, "and imagine people from all those groups in one big group: French Revolutionaries, Neo-Nazis, Communists, Muslim extremists, liberal absolutionists, even members of the Ku Klux Klan."

"What's that?" Odd asked.

"It's a cult that supports what the American Southern States did before their Civil War," Ulrich answered. "Mainly slavery, but also white supremacy, male dominance, and basically doing whatever the heck they wanted."

"Exactly," Jeremy said. "And a man named Kirk Jerome got all these people together and, starting with France, proceeded to make Europe the start of their new 'utopia'. And they called themselves the Black Cobras."

"Why that?" Yumi asked.

"The color black symbolized the end of what they called 'the bane of humanity', which is freedom of expression, thought, and religious orders, mainly Christianity," Jeremy answered. "The cobras show that they are patient and cunning killers, waiting for the right moment to strike."

"Let me guess," Ulrich started, "your family were the ones who first sprung into action to stop them."

"You guessed right," Jeremy stated. "My grandfather, Matthew Belpois, who was a lieutenant colonel in the army during World War II, got the rest of the country into the fight. It was hard because Germany gave us a good thrashing, but America and England gave us a little support after Hitler killed himself and Hirohito surrendered. Grandpa himself was the one who sent Kirk to jail and a few years after that, my dad was born. Kirk died in jail twenty years later, when my dad was in college, but their followers on the outside demanded his remains be turned over to their new leader or he would destroy our cities one person at a time. Grandpa told Dad about the secret force and he teamed up with our boys to take their new leader down."

"Wait, what does this have to do with that guy who attacked the school?" Odd asked.

"To tell you that, I have to finish where I'm at. My dad was not alone in the Second Cobra War. He had a best friend in college because their dads were friends, and they were the best fighters on the force. Dad was the brawns and his friend was the brains."

"Who was his friend?" Aelita asked. Jeremy then turned and looked at Aelita very seriously.

"He was… Franz Hopper. Your father." Jeremy said.

"My daddy knew yours?" she gasped. Jeremy nodded.

"Not just yours, Aelita. He went to school with all of your dads as well. They were also in the division that my dad was in as a secret agent and helped to take the Cobra's new leader down." he added, looking at the others.

"All of our dads? Really?" Odd asked.

Jeremy placed a picture on the table which showed a group of people under a banner that read "Kadic University: Class of '85". Seven people were circled in black marker and had their names written next to them: Michael Belpois, Waldo Schaffer, Devon Della Robia, Josef Stern, Arthur Dunbar, Jean-Pierre Delmas, and Tetsuo Ishiyama. The past forms of Jeremy's dad and Waldo were standing shoulder to shoulder, grinning widely.

"He's right," William stated. "They are all our dads."

"Wait," Sissi started. "This says 'Waldo Schaffer," but you said his name was 'Franz Hopper'. Why is that?"

"Waldo Schaffer is her dad's real name," Jeremy answered, "but he took the name Franz Hopper to hide himself from the Cobras, who were pursuing him for Lyoko. Franz is his middle name, and Hopper is the maiden name of his wife, Anthea."

"Oh," Sissi said, "I see."

"Wait a minute," Ulrich stopped. "You expect me to believe that my dad was part of a team of crime-fighting geniuses and never told me about it? My dad went out of his way to say that he was everything he thought I wasn't when we were fighting on Lyoko. He said he was studious when I was lazy and well-behaved where I was a 'troublemaker'."

"Do you really believe that, Ulrich?" Jeremy asked, intently.

Ulrich couldn't answer. Jeremy looked at him in such a way that he couldn't even imagine the words he would use.

"Then what was he really like, then?" he asked in a voice that conveyed a feeling of thinking one thing and then being taught something completely contradictory.

"When we met your father," Mr. Belpois said, from the driver's seat: "he was the most mischievous thirteen-year-old I ever knew. He was known for staying out late at parties, barely studying, T. the principal's house every Halloween, egging his car every Easter, and above all else, being an infamous womanizer."

Needless to say, Ulrich was shocked.

"My dad…really did all that stuff?" he asked, half-trembling at thins newfound knowledge.

"I tell the truth, son," Mr. Belpois responded. "Though he wishes it isn't, which is why he never told you. He didn't want you to be disappointed of him. He already is."

"Don't worry. I'm not," Ulrich assured him, though he was still quite shocked. "I believe he really knows that no one is perfectly normal, but anyone can try to be close."

"But what happened after our dads fought this creep?" William asked.

"Well," Jeremy answered, "it started when I was four years old and Franz Hopper had called Dad been about a threatening phone call he received the previous day. The callers claimed to be from the government and said they were going to arrest him for illegal experimentation, and take his wife and Aelita into federal custody. Hopper told my father that they weren't real agents because he traced the call and found out that it wasn't the government line or any other agency's line, but the Cobra's private line. He told my father of his plan to escape into Lyoko until everything calmed down, but XANA tried to take over and, well…you know what happened after that. I could tell that Dad was pretty down when it happened."

"Well, I'd be too," Odd stated, "if I lost my best friend."

"When I was ten," Jeremy continued, "a group of officers passed by my school with my dad in the driver's seat chasing a large black truck with blacked out windows. I didn't know what it meant then, but then Mom picked me up after school and didn't take me home, but took me to the facility where Dad and the others worked, and told me the story and told me Dad had disappeared after I saw him. With that, I tracked down the Cobras to their hideout, saved my dad who was held hostage, and defeated what was left of the Cobras, which wasn't much with their leader in jail. Afterwards, I graduated grade school, my mom enrolled me in Kadic Jr. High, I discovered the factory and Lyoko, and here we are."

"So the guy who attacked us," Yumi asked, "was he a member of the Cobras?"

"Yes," Jeremy answered.

"Wait," Ulrich said. "If that guy said you had illegal drugs, but you didn't, how did you take him out, and more importantly, pass Jim's obstacle course?"

"I really used to be very fit and strong," he answered, "but I lost a lot of my strength when I started using the supercomputer.

"What do you mean?" Sissi asked.

"He wrote in his journal that his brain and body got sicker and sicker every time he used the supercomputer." Yumi retorted.

"That's right," Jeremy added. "But now I got it all back." He then took off his shirt and everyone's mouths opened when they saw Jeremy's newly re-developed muscles.

"Dude," William gawked. "You're _ripped_."

"Yeah, that's true, I guess," Jeremy responded.

"How did that happen?" Sissi asked. "I mean, how did you get that back, if you had it before?"

Jeremy looked down. "I didn't want to tell you guys this yet, especially you, Aelita, but there is no need for secrecy now." He put his shirt back on and took a deep breath.

"Waldo Schaffer is the one who gave me my strength back."

Aelita gasped. "How?"

"I met him on Lyoko after he sent me a message." He answered. "He said he'd be back soon, but said something about a mission he was doing in the Network, and then he and these two kids he was with disappeared, and I was back in the real world."

Aelita said nothing, but placed her hand over her heart and took a sigh. "At least I know he's all right."

Jeremy was about to say something, but then a loud beeping sound was heard which caused everyone to jump in alarm.

"What's up, Dad?" Jeremy asked.

"Looks like we got company, kids," he answered. But before anyone could inquire as to what the trouble was, a small screen on the front passenger headrest showed that there were three black-clad figures on jet-black motorcycles approaching fast from behind.

"More of those Cobra guys?" Sissi asked.

"Affirmative," Jeremy answered, then pushed a small button on the armrest of the seat. Suddenly, Jeremy's dad stepped on the gas pedal, and the car began to go noticeably faster in no time at all.

"Hold on to something, kids," he barked, "this is gonna get hairy." The armrest opened up and Jeremy grabbed a TAG-17 pistol and rolled down the window. He leaned out the window and shot at one of the motorcycles. His aim was true, and not only flattened the tire, but broke the wheel's axle as well. The vehicle skidded and veered out of sight. The other two started to catch up, but Jeremy's dad made a sharp left turn, causing one cyclist to veer too hard and careen under an oncoming garbage truck. As the last cyclist got close, Jeremy's dad made a hard right, but he still held on. Jeremy readied another shot and fired, this time at the motor. The shot ripped through the metal plate and leather cover like tissue, and ledged itself into the gears, which was enough to cause the bike's wheels to immediately stop rotating and cause the cyclist to fall of and fly into an awning on a nearby grocery shop while his motorcycle skidded to a halt near a gas station, and when it hit, everything went up in smoke.

When everything was over, Jeremy put the gun back in the armrest, and faced the others, who were quite shaken from going from 42 to 72 MPH in two seconds.

"That," Odd said after a while, "was AWESOME! Can we do it again?"

The others groaned at this, but Jeremy laughed.

"We will be getting a lot of that in the days to come, Odd," he answered. "Take a look over there," He then pointed across the street.

They looked and saw a large white two-story house at the end of the street surrounded with bright green grass and a large pine tree. The house had a jet-black roof, and the door was a bright shade of blue, which was reflected in the color of the shutters.

"That's my house over there." Jeremy said. "Soon all your questions about me will be answered, as well as those about what lies ahead, because that is something that, like it or not, we all must face together, if we want our country to remain safe and free."


	6. Chapter 5: Gathering and Initiation

Sorry this took so long, but you know how it goes...

**Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 5: Gathering and Initiation

As the limo slowed to stop in the middle of the driveway, the gang noticed five other cars parked at the curb near the driveway. Sissi noticed one vehicle in particular:

"Hey, that's daddy's car."

Yumi turned to look in that direction and noticed something else along with it:

"My mom's car is there, too."

"That's because all our parents are here," Jeremy stated. "Mr. Delmas called them, remember?"

When the gang all got out of the limo, the door of the house opened and three figures came out. The first was a gold-haired woman in an apron, the second was a brown-haired boy about the age of Yumi's little brother Hiroki, and the third which bolted towards Jeremy and knocked him down was a large German Shepherd with a bright blue collar and a silver-colored oval name tag.

"Good to see you too, Alex. Down, boy." Jeremy said, getting up while pushing the enthusiastic canine away. The little boy tackled him with a loud "Jeremy!" as soon as the dog was pushed away. "Hey, Frankie," he added as he got back on his feet, and then turned to his friends.

"Oh, right," said Jeremy, observing their confused looks, "you haven't met the rest of my family yet. Mom, these are my friends, Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, William, Sissi, and Aelita. Everyone, this is my mother, Louise, my younger brother, Frankie, and our dog, Alex."

"Nice to met you," Aelita said.

Jeremy's mom smiled. "You know, my son has told me an awful lot about you, young lady."

Jeremy turned noticeably redder as she mentioned this, which made Odd and Ulrich snicker under their breath.

"To what do I owe this pleasure of having you home early?" Mrs. Belpois asked.

Jeremy's expression darkened as she asked this. "There was an…incident."

His mother got a bit worried. "What do you mean, honey?"

"I'll tell you once we all get inside," her son answered.

"Just as well," she responded. "Your friends' parents got here a few minutes ago, but wouldn't tell me what was the occasion that they all came here."

"Trust me, mom," Jeremy stated, "you'll find out soon enough,"

The inside of the house was very large, which was not a common thing for normal people in their country. They all crossed from the entry hall into the den, which was also very spacious. Sitting on various couches and chairs in the den were Yumi's parents, along with her little brother Hiroki, Ulrich's parents, Odd's parents, William's parents, and Mr. Delmas with a woman with waist long black hair pulled back, who everyone except Jeremy and Sissi knew was Sissi's mom. There was a long moment of the moms hugging their kids with "how could this have happened to you?" and "are you sure you're all right, honey?". After this fiasco was over, Jeremy sat down in a chair facing them all, and the others seated themselves elsewhere.

"Now, I suppose you're all wondering why my dad called you all here," he started.

"Well, most of us know part of that, Jeremy," Mr. Stern said, quite irate, and turned on the radio and tuned to the national news station which blared:

"A very shocking breaking news story is now in development. At approximately 1:54 this afternoon, there was an incredible car explosion in front of a local junior high school in downtown Bordeaux. Police reports claim that a false officer had used a false report of illegal drug ownership to try to take a student into the car before it exploded, but two officers on the scene stopped the imposter and saved the boy before anyone got hurt. Still awaiting definite word as to what exactly went on at the…"

Jeremy's mom gasped as Mr. Stern shut the radio off. "So that's also why you're all home early." Jeremy nodded.

"And just how was I supposed to know this would all happen, Josef?" Mr. Delmas barked angrily. "It's not like that sort of thing happens so often that I'd see it coming a mile away!"

"Calm down, Jean-Pierre," Jeremy's dad said coolly. "Josef, Jeremy didn't know that would happen, either. Fighting against each other will only lead to more anger."

"You're the _last_ one to talk to me about when to be fighting after you let my son and all of those other kids get sucked into that lunatic's literal virtual wasteland, Michael!"

"He's not a lunatic!" Jeremy's mom shouted. "Waldo was a genius! How can you say that about your friend? My son and his friends chose to fight on Lyoko of their own free will because they were helping Waldo save the world from that psychopathic virus, not to mention trying to save Waldo and saving his daughter!"

The gang let out a collective gasp and jumped in shock.

"What?" Odd gaped.

"How did you guys know?" Ulrich barked.

"Who told you about our involvement with Lyoko and the factory?" Yumi demanded.

Jeremy got out of the chair. "I did."

They all turned to him in utter shock.

"You?" Aelita gasped.

"He told me about Lyoko the day he discovered the factory's secret rooms," his dad explained calmly. "We also know because we all helped your father build those rooms, the scanners, and the supercomputer, and I helped design Lyoko. By the way, it's good to see you again, Aelita Schaffer."

"You…did?"

"They all went to the same college, don't you remember?" Jeremy reminded them.

"Then why didn't they tell us?" Sissi asked.

"Because Michael told us not to." Mr. Delmas answered his daughter.

"In case you haven't noticed," Mr. Ishiyama said, "we're really good at keeping secrets."

"Though when I discovered that photo you got from Odd, Elizabeth," Mr. Delmas said, "I couldn't help but show you kids just what and who you were involved with."

"What do you mean, dad?" Sissi asked.

Her father then pulled out a picture from his jacket and showed to his daughter. It showed Mr. Delmas standing next to Franz Hopper in front of a chalkboard. Standing next to him was Aelita, and when Sissi saw it, she looked at the real Aelita and back at the picture several times before she gasped,

"She looks the same as she does now!"

"That's because she and her father were trapped in Lyoko for ten years and she didn't age a day," Jeremy explained. "She looks thirteen, but she's really 23. It's not something I or any of us like to talk about, but it's the truth."

The gang shifted into an uncomfortable silence, soon broken by Mr. Delmas saying to Odd,

"By the way, Mr. Della Robia, do tell me, how is your friend Kiwi doing?"

"Oh, he's just fine, thank you for – wait a minute!" Odd jumped in place. "How did you know about Kiwi?"

"Oh, your father asked me to let him stay because said he would be lonely without you," Mr. Delmas grinned slyly, "and since we're friends, I gave in."

Odd clutched his chest, and exhaled sharply, when Jeremy's dad glared at Mr. Stern and said harshly,

"Speaking of secrets, you, Josef, still need to learn some things, like don't lie to your son about your past in the futile hopes that he won't be ashamed when he does find out."

Mr. Stern stopped. "You…told him, then?"

Jeremy's dad nodded.

Just the, Ulrich saw his dad do something he had never seen him do before: slump down in the couch and bury his head in his hands in grief.

"You're right…" he said, half sobbing. "Damn it…it's all my fault."

"Dad, it's okay," Ulrich said. "It's not your fault. You were just trying to make sure I didn't end up like you, and thanks to you, I'm not."

His dad looked up at his son. "It's not okay," he retorted. "I shouldn't have said I wasn't who I really was in the first place, but thanks for your comment."

"Family situations aside," Jeremy stated, "let's get started with the briefing."

He grabbed a remote control that was resting on the chair and pushed a green button in the top middle. This caused the television screen to switch from the news program currently showing to a screen showing a complex series of sonar screens, radars, and charts. Jeremy pushed another button and a picture popped onto the screen.

"This man," Jeremy said, "is the one behind the car bomb earlier this morning. His name is Djerardo Pynchev. He's a newly made, small-time crook, found guilty of drug possession and aggression a couple months back, but was also found guilty of identity theft a year ago. If you guys don't already know," he said to the gang, "he was one of the 'secret service agents' who got possessed by XANA, but what we just learned about him has confirmed my suspicions."

"About what?" Mrs. Della Robia asked.

"Less than one year ago," Jeremy answered with a pause, "he and a gang of fellow drug-dealers joined what was left of the Black Cobras, and now almost all of the original members have busted out of jail."

All of the adults, except for Jeremy's parents, bolted upright, shocked and horrified.

"What? How? How can this be?" Mrs. Ishiyama gasped.

"I thought that they were done for good this time!" Mrs. Dunbar yelled.

"Well, apparently, these guys learned some new tricks," Jeremy said, "like how to pin a mass theft on a thirteen-year-old kid that was really committed by a demonic Artificial Intelligence."

"What do you mean?" Mr. Dunbar asked.

"About a few months ago," he answered, "two men who claimed to be from the Secret Service came to the school saying that they traced a number involved in the theft of machinery from a government lab to the school, and the number was my cell phone number."

"Did the Cobras steal it?" Odd's dad asked.

"No, XANA did so he could make his army of robots to take on the world," Jeremy responded, "but he left my cell phone number behind as a way to throw the police off his trail and as a way to get the Cobras on my trail."

"Wait a minute," Mr. Dunbar asked. "How do you know about the Cobra's return or their involvement with XANA?"

"The reason I know all about this," Jeremy conceded, "is because… Waldo told me."

The adults looked shocked, yet relieved at the same time.

"I heard Michael mention something like that," Odd's dad commented, "but I thought it was impossible."

"Difficult, yes," Jeremy said, "but not impossible. He called me to the factory at three in the morning earlier today."

Mrs. Stern breathed a sigh of relief. "At least we know that he's all right, and you as well, Aelita."

"Er, thanks." Aelita responded, hesitantly.

"With that said," Jeremy repeated, "let's get back on task. From what Waldo told me, I believe that the Cobras want something that they didn't have last time and would assure their dominance of the world."

"And that would be what, exactly?" Mr. Delmas inquired. "Kirk's remains again?"

Jeremy lowered his head for a moment, and then said, "That's one thing."

"Eww," Sissi cringed. "What would they want a dead body for?"

"Not his body, Sissi," Jeremy's dad said, "What they mean by his remains is the remains of his fortune which was locked away after he himself was locked away."

"What kind of fortune?" Odd asked.

"His father and older brother were captains in the Third Reich," Mr. Ishiyama answered. "In fact, his stepbrother was none other than Fredrich Fromm."

"Wasn't he the one who double-crossed Stauffenberg in the 'Operation Valkyrie' conspiracy to kill Hitler, but was later killed himself?" Ulrich added.

"Yes," his mom responded. "Though he was not a member of the Reich himself, Kirk supplied his stepbrother with money and supplies partially because he owned a Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant which made tanks, planes, and jeeps for the army, but also because he was very successful in another business."

"What business?" Yumi queried.

Jeremy took a serious expression. "Arms manufacturing. He hand-made guns, tanks, and grenades, which didn't cost him anything, and sold them to the German Army for top dollar. He even built the gun that Hitler used to kill himself, which is in our World War II exhibit in the city museum."

"Whoa." William gaped.

"That's one thing that the Cobras are after," Jeremy reiterated, "but there is another thing that they seek. Something that's a little, shall we say, closer to home?"

"What's that?" Aelita asked, looking very worried at her boyfriend.

Jeremy looked at her. "The factory."

"Why that?" Sissi asked.

"To be more specific," Jeremy elaborated, "they're not after the factory itself, but what's inside the factory."

"The supercomputer," Ulrich concluded, to which Jeremy gave a solemn nod.

"But XANA's dead, right?" Sissi asked. "What would they possibly need it for?"

Jeremy looked at her very intently. "That machine is capable of directly connecting with any and all electronic devices on Earth and all the satellites orbiting 500 miles above it, which is about 805 kilometers, since we use the metric system. If they get control of that, they could very well have control over this entire city within an hour."

Sissi looked surprised, but not too terribly shocked.

"Within a day, they could seize the entire country of France."

Her eyes slightly widened, but still didn't show much.

"Within almost a week, _the entire world_."

Her mouth instantly dropped wide open, "Oh. I see."

Jeremy nodded. "That's why we must take these guys down once and for all before their goals can come to fruition. I suspect we don't have much time."

He leaned in on his friends. "This is not like Lyoko. You don't get another shot in a real battle. This is real, bloody, and terrifying. But I know that you aren't too afraid and no doubt want to keep our God-given land safe and free, so then I ask you one question:

Are you ready to save the world again?"

Aelita got up first. "If you're going to fight, then I'm coming with you."

Ulrich rose second. "I'm in."

Yumi followed suit. "If you're in, then I'm in too."

Odd jumped up next. "Hey, don't leave me out, guys!"

William joined the others. "It's about time I did something right for once after what I've done on Lyoko under XANA."

Sissi got up last. "Well, I don't want to be left out either if you guys are doing this. Besides, being a secret agent sounds like something really cool."

"Thanks, guys," Jeremy said. "I know that with your help, these guys will rue the day they crawled out from the rock they came from!"

After a long pause, Odd was the first to speak up.

"So…where do we start?"

Before Jeremy could answer, the doorbell rang.

"The first thing," he stated, "would be to answer the door."

Jeremy and his dad went to the door, and when they opened it, two black-clad army officers greeted them, and one of them had a small piece of paper clutched in his hand.

"Good afternoon," the one with the paper started. "I'm Agent Gregory Beklin of the European Secret Service. This is my partner, Agent Ryan Shackloft. Are you…?"

Jeremy's dad nodded. "Yes, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jacob Belpois, and this boy is my son, Special Captain Jeremiah Marquis Belpois. How can we help you?"

The agents snapped to a salute and Agent Greg said, "I have a message for you both from my boss, General Gordon Alistair, and he requests that you and the captain here join him at Camp Gideon for a debriefing of a new mission that he is assigning you."

Jeremy saluted back. "My father and I accept on condition that my friends here be allowed to accompany us to Camp Gideon."

"May I ask what for, sir?" Ryan asked.

"They're new recruits, agent." Jeremy replied.

The agent saluted back. "Agreed, sir," He then proceeded to a large black SUV that was parked outside the house next to the limo.

"Come on, guys," Jeremy said, motioning to the gang. "We've got us a country and a world to save."

"What's Camp Gideon?" Yumi asked as they followed him.

Jeremy grinned at her. "Two words, my friend: boot camp."

* * *

Sounds cool, huh? Wait till next time!


	7. Chapter 6: Trials and Preparations

Well, here it is! After agonizing weeks of research and preparations, here's Chpater 6!

**Disclaimer: Code Lyoko (C) 2002-2012 MoonScoop, not JeremyX. Plese support the official release.**

**(The fandom is okay, too, though)**

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Chapter 6: Trials and Preparations

The SUV drove over a number of muddy ruts before reaching its destination, which was about twenty miles away from the city. A chain-link fence encircled rows of tents, a field of training courses, a mess hall, and the commander's cabin. The worn-out sign at the gate read:

"Camp Gideon – Unauthorized entry is prohibited and will result in appropriate application of severe punishment."

Jeremy rolled down the passenger's window, pulled out his badge, and showed it to the security camera. It scanned the badge for two seconds, and then beeped while the gate opened with a loud whirring noise.

"_Welcome, Captain Belpois,_" the computer said as the vehicle continued to the main building. As it stopped near the door, Jeremy got out and pressed the buzzer on the door, and a tall man in a black army uniform came out to greet him.

"Good afternoon, Sergeant Miller," Jeremy said, saluting him.

"Captain Belpois?" he gaped, while saluting in response, and clearly surprised. "What are you doing here? I thought you had retired for the rest of your school year!"

"You need to keep up with the times, sergeant," Jeremy replied, "because things have gotten pretty ugly as of late." He then motioned to the car. "I got some fresh meat here, so I need the camp trainer here, pronto."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant saluted, going inside as Agent Beklin, Agent Shackloft, and the others got out of the car. Before they arrived, the gang had been given new pairs of military trainee uniforms from Jeremy's dad, and they were wearing them as they stood next to the car.

"I take it these guys know you," William stated.

"Of course," Jeremy responded, "because this is where I was trained."

"Cool," Odd gawked, looking around at the campsite. A few minutes later, the sergeant reemerged from the bunker along with a very familiar looking figure, who saluted as he emerged.

"Special Forces Trainer Jim Morales reporting for duty, sir," Jim's loud voice rang out, but then blinked when he noticed whom he was facing.

"Belpois?" he said, raising an eyebrow, "What are you kids doing here?"

"I called you here to train us," Jeremy answered, "since we need it for the coming battle."

"You?" Jim asked. "But he said that a captain called me here to train some new recruits."

"That's right," Jeremy repeated, "and you're looking at him."

"You, a captain in the Secret Police?" Jim chuckled, clearly not grasping the facts present to him.

"He may not look like it, Agent Morales," the sergeant shot at him, "but three years ago, he single-handedly stopped the most diabolical criminal syndicates ever to roam the streets of France."

Jim was taken aback by this, but Jeremy commented, "Well, not by myself, but I did take down their boss alone, but that's only because everyone else was incapacitated at that moment."

"Let me guess," Jim grinned, "You'd rather not talk about it, hm?"

Jeremy smiled. "Exactly,"

"All right, then," Jim barked, rubbing his hands together, "then let's cut the chatting and get to the sweating, shall we? Let's hit the track, people!"

With that, they all followed him a little way to a dirt track at the back of the camp, and motioned for the gang to line up at the starting line.

"All right, uh, troops," Jim started, "this course spans the entire perimeter of the campsite, so I'll make it easy for now and get one lap out of you. That's five kilometers, which is about 3.1 miles. You've all got five minutes, and that starts…

NOW!"

With that, they all took off. William and Sissi lagged a bit, but Ulrich and Odd were running as fast as ever.

"You're not gonna beat me, buddy boy!" Odd shouted as caught up with Ulrich. But just as he did, something sped easily past them both.

"Come on, guys," Jeremy teased as he passed Odd, "I thought you were stronger than that!"

"That's easy for you to say!" Odd panted, "Your dad told me you've been doing this since you could walk!"

"Not true," Jeremy said, "I've been doing this since I was five, and that was long after I learned to walk. It's just that I'm doing something different than I normally do."

As he said this, they came to the end of the track and Jeremy was the first to cross the end line, followed shortly by Odd and Ulrich, then the rest came a few seconds later. As they finished, Jim couldn't help but laugh.

"Belpois is making you two look pathetic!" he barked at Odd and Ulrich.

"Now, come on, Jim," Jeremy said, panting, "you may be a trainer, but trainers are supposed to be supportive of their trainees, aren't they?"

"I think that's enough for now," William panted.

"Fair enough," Jeremy said, "considering our debriefing starts in a few minutes. That all right with you, Jim?"

"Hey, if you kids gotta be somewhere, don't let me hold you up," Jim answered.

With that, Jeremy and the others, along with Jim, Agent Beklin, and Agent Shackloft, marched to the commander's cabin at the center of camp. A bunch of collapsible chairs had been neatly arranged into picture-perfect rows and columns, and they all sat down in the front row. Jeremy's dad, who had followed the SUV in his car, joined them. Soon after, two men entered the room from the other side. Though the first man did not look very old, except from his high cheekbones, which were visible in his expression, his eyes showed more battle experience than any number of battle scars.

"Greetings," the man started. "For those of you who don't know, I am General Gordon Alistair, Commander of the Second Secret Service of France, and Honorary Sheriff of INTERPOL. This man here is my partner in crime stopping, Dan Larkson, Deputy Sheriff of National Security." He motioned to the second man, who saluted to the group.

"The matter of which I called you here," General Gordon continued, "is this."

He pressed a button on a remote control, and uploaded a picture of a man in a mug shot to the screen of the large television screen on the wall The man looked in his late forties, with moussed and gray-streaked black hair, and a thick, bushy, black beard.

"This man," he said, "for those of you who don't know, is Geraldo Danzkhi, the current leader of the Black Cobras. At approximately 12:31 this morning, he escaped from his containment chamber by use of a time bomb, carefully put together over his period of confinement with pieces salvaged from various places. No one could have detected even the most remote clue as to how and when he did this, but he has done it, and now we face the threat of the Cobras yet again."

Jeremy glowered. "Damn it. Why didn't they just stay down when they got beat?"

The general noticed Jeremy's remark, and responded, "If it was that easy, Captain, then they wouldn't be the vicious cult that they are."

Jeremy made a face at this, and sighed. "True enough, but I think we all wish that they would just learn to take a hint."

"Well, since we've established countless times over that they will not, let's move on, shall we?" the general retorted, turning back to the screen, which now showed a mug shot of the man that attacked the school.

"I have no doubt that you all know this man, but for those who don't," he continued, looking at Jim, "this man is the one who attacked Kadic Academy, Djeral Pynchev. Small part-time drug dealer, illegal arms shipping, and about every major crime you can think of that is so predictable for an agent of the Black Cobras." Alistair then turned to Jeremy. "Before I go any further, Captain, I trust your mission was a success?"

Jeremy grinned and saluted. "Affirmative, General. Scipio has rescued the princess, slain Hannibal, and Carthage has been razed to the ground."

"Scipio?" Aelita jolted. "What do you mean by him, Hannibal, and Carthage? And what do you mean by a mission?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Jeremy asked, looking at her. "You're the mission. I'm referring to when we got you out of Lyoko, broke you free of XANA's control, and destroyed him once and for all. That was my mission."

"Your mission?" Ulrich said. "So, our whole time spent on Lyoko…all the things we did about Lyoko…all that was…"

"All a mission organized by my section in the National Police," Jeremy finished. "Now that doesn't mean that it wasn't more than a mission, but it was what it was."

"What about all the things you did to keep it all together?" Yumi asked. "Hacking into the school's system, hacking into _government_ systems, and all those other times you broke the law? Not to mention the time you almost got arrested?"

Jeremy smiled. "Who said I broke the law? Ever heard of government clearance?" He held up his badge, and pulled out a security card from another pocket of the badge case. "All those times I said that I 'hacked' and 'broke into' these places was all authorized by the ones in authority over those places. Take the school, for instance. Principal Delmas allowed everything to happen. In fact, he used Aelita's background from when she was already enrolled here ten years ago, but it was slightly changed for obvious reasons. As for the attempted arrest, the feds would have taken over before I divulged anything."

"So, daddy knew about all this?" Sissi said, struggling to put the pieces together inside her head.

"Not just him," Jeremy added, "but the whole mission to rescue Aelita and destroy XANA was ordered by Jeromé Romaine Keller himself."

The mention of that name made Ulrich, Odd, William, and Sissi jump to their feet.

"WHAT?" Ulrich shouted.

"The President?" Odd gasped.

"That whole Lyoko mission was an order from President Keller?" William asked, shocked beyond anything.

"Why else do you think that your parents didn't tell you about how they knew about Lyoko?" Jeremy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"But I thought that your dad told them not to tell after you told him," Odd stuttered.

"Well, that was a contributing factor," Jeremy replied, "but the whole deal with Carthage and Lyoko was an issue of national security. It's not like we could just tell anyone, which is why you were warned to keep out of it, Jim." He turned to Jim when he said this. "It wasn't to keep you in the dark or to endanger your position, but to keep you from getting involved with something out of your league."

Jim looked shocked, then grinned wildly. "So you kids were up to something, weren't you?"

"Nothing illegal," Jeremy said, "but yes, we were."

Jim pounded his fist in his hand. "Yes! I knew it! I knew all along that you kids were doing something fishy!"

"Well, not fishy, per se," Jeremy elaborated, "but we just didn't want to attract any… unnecessary attention to our mission. Besides, you learned it before, but you just forgot."

"Wait a minute," William said, "speaking of that, how did the principal or anyone else even know about what you guys did at all? Didn't that time-rewind program blank out everyone's memory who didn't go to Lyoko?"

"Well, yes," Jeremy said, "but those involved with Project Carthage, like Waldo, obviously developed protection against the Return to the Past's effects. He got the tech and gave it to his friends, that being our parents, in case of an emergency. As it turned out, the whole thing with XANA was as big an emergency as you can imagine."

"Getting back to the subject at hand," General Gordon said, "we need to find out where these new Cobras are recruiting their new peons, and what Danzkhi plans to do now that his old crew is back. The only question is: how will we approach this?"

Sissi raised her hand, and the general laughed. "This isn't your classroom, young lady, but what would you like to say?"

Sissi lowered her hand, turned a little red for a while at Alistair's comment, and then said, "Well, what about that car bomber?" she asked. "We could get him to tell who sent him to the school, and maybe get a bead on this mystery."

Everyone looked at her, and Yumi said, "That's…not a half-bad idea, Sissi."

"Yeah," Odd agreed. "Good thinking, for once."

Sissi grinned awkwardly. "Thanks, I guess."

"Pynchev has already been taken to the Antoine Barrack, the most secure, non-federal prison that was available," the general stated, "but it's quite a ways away from our current location. It's all the way in Dijon, and that's about 306 kilometers away from here in Sceaux. Plus, there's no road to get to the island compound, and we can't just take a boat all the way out there just to cross a few kilos of deep water."

"No problem, General," Jeremy said. "We'll just take a chopper, won't we then?"

"Another good idea, Captain," Alistair agreed. "You're really getting back into this, aren't you?"

"Indeed I am, sir," he replied happily, "and it's good to be back."

"Hold on," Odd said, "I thought you said you hated flying. Why would you suggest it now?"

"I didn't take that flight," Jeremy said, "because I knew they would recognize me, and that would just lead to more pawing over me and asking me to fly them."

"Wait," Ulrich said, "_you_ can _fly_?"

"Yeah," he replied, "I got my junior pilot's license at age 11, but only for provisional measures. I was surprisingly tall for an eleven-year-old. By now I'm definitely old enough for a fully-fledged license. Now let's go."

With that, the gang got up out of the chairs, and they followed Jeremy out the door.

"I swear, Jeremy," Odd said, "you are just full of surprises today, aren't you?" At that, Jeremy simply grinned widely.

"Maybe," he said, "but I guess that's just how I roll."

He led them to a nearby heliport, with two helicopters ready for flying, and five agents for vehicle security. When Jeremy came onto the heliport, all the agents saluted him.

"All vehicles ready for takeoff, sir!" One of them said, who was clearly in charge of the port. "What are your orders, Captain Belpois, sir?"

"We're heading for Dijon, soldier," Jeremy replied, "and we're gonna need backup. I'll need a small troop to accompany us on our expedition to the Antoine Barrack."

"Sir, yes, sir!" they all responded. With the agents, the gang all piled into the chopper and Jeremy began to initiate the takeoff sequence.

"Hey, Jeremy," Sissi asked, "Where are those two agents and your dad?"

"Agents Beklin and Shackloft, and my dad said they would stay behind at the camp," he answered, and then they all heard a shout from the opposite side of the port.

"Hey! Wait for me!" It took the gang a fraction of a second to realize it was Jim who had hollered at the chopper, and Jeremy signaled the pilot to pause. As Jim finally caught up with the copter, he looked up at the gang and panted.

"You're not gonna do something cool like this," he gasped, "and not take me along, right?"

Jeremy smiled. "No, because that would be just rude. Of course you can come, just don't do anything incredibly dangerous and/or stupid."

As the chopper ascended from the helipad, everyone looked out the window wide-eyed with awe, since, with the exception of Odd, they had never been in a helicopter before. Aelita was especially intrigued as she looked out over the suburb of Sceaux with wonder and amazement.

"It's…so beautiful," she whispered, "The whole town looks amazing from up here."

The others couldn't agree with her more. To see the townspeople walking about, some rushing to work and others just doing their other daily routines, and to see the cars speeding down the roads, seeing all this from so high in the sky was truly an experience like no other. They figured that Jeremy had probably seen this multiple times, but they had rarely taken time for a moment like this.

"Aelita looks really happy, doesn't she?" Sissi asked William.

"Well, put yourself in her place," he replied. "She's been trapped in a virtual prison for nearly ten years, and before that, she never ventured away from her home. Now she is going even farther than when the guys were still trying to take down XANA. She's never had a chance to experience something like this, so it's needless to say that she's excited."

"That's right," Jeremy said, "but if I were you I wouldn't get to attached to the beauty, because it's about to get pretty ugly." He pointed to the distance. Several kilometers away from their current location was a small island in the middle of an equally small lake, but they could tell fro the color of the water, that it was not shallow. The island was almost completely taken up by a large building, surrounded by a tall, thick fence, which looked like it was giving off occasional bursts of static.

"Is that…?" Yumi started.

"Yes, Yumi," Jeremy answered shortly, "that fence is electric. It's just the sort of security precaution needed for the famous Antoine Barrack. In a few mere moments, we will know more about these new Cobras, who sent them, and how we can stop them before they destroy everything we hold most dear. It's only a mater of time…"

* * *

**Next chapter coming very soon!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	8. Chapter 7: Interrogation and Drafting

**A/N: After weeks of trying to focus on my darn stories and having my annoying sister, TemariTrainer, kick me off before I get two words down, here it is! The long-awaited Chapter 7! This is where it gets a little darker, and the plot is clearer, so enjoy!**

**Also, I still don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 7: Interrogation and Drafting

The room was completely dark, except for the small glow of a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. In the center of the room was a plain white table, and across the table sat Djeral Pynchev, chained to his seat with steel cuffs on his ankles and his wrists. He had a good deal of bruises on his face, and there was a small amount of blood running out of his mouth, which was curled in a mix of a sneer and a scowl. Standing in front of him was a tall, bulky man, clad in a black and blue army uniform, and grinding his teeth at his captive.

"I don't want you here any more than you do, Pynchev," the officer grumbled, "but since it's been well over three hours and you've yet to say one word about who sent you here and what your mission is, you have left me with no alternative."

"And what does that mean, _Private Hesner_?" the prisoner shot back through his teeth.

"You'll know soon enough, you filth," the private replied. "One of our top agents is already en route to this location to take over the interrogation. If anyone can get you to talk, he can. And mark my words, he _will_."

"And who is this joker?" Pynchev asked mockingly. At this, Private Hesner turned and grinned.

"Oh, you know him," he said softly. "In fact, you know him _quite well_."

Just then, the radio receiver on his belt gave off a beep followed by a static noise, and Private Hesner answered the radio.

"Hesner," he said.

"_He's here,_" the voice on the other line said. "_Get him ready._"

"Roger that," Hesner answered, then slid his radio back into his holster. He then turned to Pynchev.

"I'm in luck and you're in trouble," he growled at his captive. "Your new friend is here, and I hope, for your sake, that he plays nice with you."

Pynchev chuckled. "Yeah, I'm practically peeing myself right now."

Private Hesner made no comment, but simply slipped out of the room, and after a while, another figure entered. Unlike Hesner, he was not a full-grown man, but was a mere teenager. Although he was in a military-standard uniform, his blond hair and thick-framed glasses were a dead giveaway of his identity.

"Well, well, well," the chained man laughed, "if it isn't Captain Jeremy Belpois himself. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? Did you like my little graduation gift?"

"Can the garbage, Pynchev," Jeremy growled. "You know why I'm here. I want some answers."

"And what might you be asking, my young captain?" the prisoner asked in a sarcastically polite tone.

Jeremy lunged forward and grabbed Pynchev by his throat. The gang, who were watching the whole scene from behind the bulletproof interrogation window, was shocked by his sudden behavior, even though they had seen him act this way once before.

"This is going to take a while to get used to," Sissi stated.

"No joke," William whispered.

"I said cut the crap, you trash!" Jeremy hollered at his captive. "You know damn well what I'm talking about. Or do you need a refresher course? The Black Cobras' involvement in Project Carthage, Lyoko, XANA, shall I go on?"

"Is that all?" Pynchev grinned slyly. "Anyone in your government could tell you anything about that. Why would you need me?"

"Because," Jeremy said, very slowly and in a low menacing tone, "you know something that no one in the government knows about, and that's because they weren't involved with the project."

"And that project would be…?" his captive smirked.

Jeremy leaned into the chained man's face so close that their noses were almost touching. The prisoner then said, in the same tone but elevated so that Jeremy's friends could hear, "The Third Punic War Project."

The gang listened more intensely. They didn't know anything about this project anymore than what was already said, but from how Jeremy spoke of it, it didn't sound good.

"I may know something," the prisoner smirked, "or maybe I don't. It all depends."

"On what, you creep?" Jeremy scowled.

"It depends on whether or not I feel like telling the likes of you," Pynchev chuckled, "you proud hound of the Republic."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Jeremy's fist made crushing contact with his face, knocking him down to the floor, dragging the chair he was chained onto with him. The gang, still watching, jumped in shock. Aelita even let out a small gasp. Jeremy reached down and grabbed Pynchev by his neck and shook him violently.

"It doesn't matter if you feel like telling me," Jeremy hissed, "I can and will make you tell me every last detail about you and what you know about the project."

"Oh, really?" the chained man laughed. "You may want to rethink that, Captain."

"And why's that?"

"Because," he said, his voice getting lower, "you may find yourself biting off more than you can chew."

Suddenly, the light in the room started flickering more brightly than before, and the others noticed the lights in the other room they were in start to flicker as well. Right then, everyone felt a small tremor in the ground, coming from the interrogation room that Jeremy and Pynchev were in. Aelita instinctively moved to the door, hoping that at least she could find out what was happening, but when she tried to turn the handle, it didn't move an inch.

"It won't open!" she cried. "The handle's locked!"

"But Aelita, Jeremy didn't lock it when he went in," Yumi stated.

"Then Pynchev must've locked it somehow!" Ulrich replied.

"Uh, guys?" Odd said, rather shakily, pointing at the window, "something really freaky is going on in there!"

The others turned to Odd, and followed his wide-eyed gaze to the window. As they looked inside, they all expressed the same expression of terror. Pynchev had suddenly started glowing brightly and his body was crackling with a bizarre purple shade of electricity. To top it all off, his forehead started glowing with an all-too familiar mark on it. Both of these phenomena were enough to make everyone, except for Sissi, recoil in fear.

"XANA?" Aelita shrieked. "It can't be!"

Pynchev, now freed from his chains, raised his arm and a bolt of lightning shot out from his hand aimed directly at Jeremy. Luckily, he dodged away just in time, rushed forward at Pynchev, and quickly grabbed the back of his head, and then forced him against the wall.

"It was foolish for you to challenge me, agent of Carthage," Jeremy said coldly, "and now you will receive your punishment."

As he said this, Jeremy pulled a small device, not unlike a flash drive, out of one of his uniform's pockets and pressed it into the back of his neck. Gradually, the gang noticed that the flashing lights were diminishing, and the rumbling stopped. The gang took a closer look inside and saw what appeared to be a stream of zeroes and ones traveling from around the man's body all the way to where the flash drive was "plugged into" on his neck. After a minute, the markings faded and the man let out an exhausted groan before he collapsed to the ground unconscious.

After he put the small device back in his jacket, Jeremy then walked to the door, and opened it. No sooner had he done that than Aelita rushed forward and pulled him into a tight hug.

"Thank God you're all right," she said, holding back tears. "I was so scared for you."

Jeremy gave Aelita a reassuring pat on her back. "It's all right, Aelita. I'm just fine."

"But what about Pynchev?" Ulrich asked. "What's happened to him and how did he do that stuff with the lightning and why was the Eye of XANA on his forehead?"

Jeremy took a deep breath. "How can I put this?" he started. "Before I turned on the supercomputer, XANA had formed an alliance with the Cobras, and he gave some of their men a power to help them in their goals in exchange for them helping him. I wouldn't be surprised if we went to check up on his 'investment' while they were all in prison."

"So that guy had part of that XANA guy's powers inside of him?" Sissi gaped. "That's just crazy!"

"I know this is true," he said sharply, "because I was doing this in my army days."

"You mean they had these powers during the Third Cobra War?" Odd retorted.

"Well, we didn't call it by that," Jeremy stated, "but that's a good name nonetheless. And yes, they did have XANA's powers when we fought them." He then showed them the device he used against Pynchev. "This device is one of many that we used to counter these new soldiers. We, for lack of a better way to put it, plugged it into the back of their heads where the base of the brain would be, and this thing sort of downloads the code from their DNA into itself."

"What happens to the code after you take it from them?" William asked.

"In the past, we've stored it in our R&D headquarters in Brussels," Jeremy replied, "but the team never found out use those codes."

"Well how do we fight off an army of these cyber-creeps without our Lyoko powers?" Yumi griped.

"Couldn't you just use those scanner things to give yourselves these powers?" Sissi asked.

"I don't think they work that way," William said, "otherwise they would've used it by now, wouldn't they?"

"Now who said that?" Jeremy grinned.

"What do you mean, Jeremy?" Aelita asked.

"The scanners you're thinking of don't work that way, yes," Jeremy responded, "but there are a set that do work like that."

"What?" Yumi gasped. "There are more scanners?"

"There are," Jeremy said, "but they're not well known among the lower-class in the military, but my dad knows about them."

"How come?" Sissi asked.

"Well, he did build them."

"WHAT?" The whole gang jumped back, shocked beyond words at this statement.

"He's not just a jock, you know," Jeremy added, "he's pretty good with high-grade power tools."

"Well, where are these scanners?" Odd asked eagerly. "I've been itching to jump back into those old Lyoko duds again!"

"Same here!" Ulrich chimed in.

"Hold your horses, guys," Jeremy held his hands up. "It's in the laboratory back home in Sceaux, and it's kind of never been used before, at least not for the purpose you are thinking of."

"You just said it worked, didn't you?" Odd whined.

"Well, yes," Jeremy stuttered, "but the program's never really been used before because no one's ever tried it before."

"Why not?" Ulrich asked.

"Well how did you first feel about being digitally transported into another world?" Jeremy asked.

Odd and Ulrich were silent for a while. "Okay, you make a good point there, Einstein," Odd said after a while.

"Well, then how do we know it works?" William asked.

"I said no one in the military used the program," Jeremy said slowly. "I didn't say no one used the program at all."

"You mean someone used the virtualization program before we did?" Aelita gasped.

"Yes," Jeremy said, looking closely at Aelita, "and that someone… was your mother."

Aelita gasped, and the others jumped in surprise.

"Mom?" she shrieked.

"Aelita's mother went to Lyoko?" Odd jolted.

"Exactly," Jeremy said, "and that's not all she's done."

"Really?" William asked. "What else has she done?"

Before Jeremy could answer, the prisoner in the interrogation room, whom they all completely forgot about in the rush of the events that recently occurred, began to get back on his feet, groaning heavily. Jeremy acted fast, rushing into the room, and locking the door behind him, so that Pynchev could not escape. Jeremy lunged forward, grabbing the man by his neck, and rammed him against the wall.

"Now do you feel like talking, you slime?" he said harshly.

"Go to hell," Pynchev smirked.

"Wrong answer, you first," Jeremy growled. To add to this, he reached into another pocket on his jacket, and pulled out a rectangular device which was larger than the one he had previously used against him. Before the prisoner could react, he was suddenly literally jolted by the 5000-volt burst of lightning that came from Jeremy's tazer. He gave a final moan of anger before he collapsed to the ground, again unconscious.

"Nice one, Einstein," Ulrich said.

"It was nothing," Jeremy replied, dusting himself off. "It's something I've done countless times in the past to save myself. I never leave headquarters without a good tazer."

"Well, that's one way of being prepared," Yumi shrugged.

"Well how do we get the info out of him now?" Sissi asked.

"Simple," Jeremy said, holding up the flash drive machine again. "We don't need him anymore. We can get what we need to know with this."

"How's that?" William inquired.

"When a person who's been fused with XANA's code has his code copy taken from him," Jeremy replied, "a copy of his recent memories is taken as well."

"So, we just plug it in at the headquarters," Yumi said, "and we can see what he's seen and figure out what we're dealing with?"

"And the scanners?" Ulrich asked. "Will we be able to translate or whatever so we can have our powers on Earth?"

"Yes and yes," Jeremy said hesitantly, "but it's kind of dangerous."

"How so?" Aelita asked.

"If you use the scanners at headquarters to translate yourselves," Jeremy explained, "you will have your costumes and powers, but there's a danger. Once you use translation without virtualization to Lyoko, I don't know if the changes made to your genetic code can be undone."

"Meaning that…?" William started.

"Meaning that you may never be able to return your original forms." Jeremy finished. "Your translation may be permanent."

"Whoa," Sissi gawked, "that _is_ a drawback."

"How do you know this?" Yumi asked.

"When Anthea entered the scanners," Jeremy said regretfully, "she never came back out. She's still out there in the Network, but we don't know if she can get back. Believe me; we've tried all that we know."

For a long time after that, no one said anything. But before long, Aelita broke the silence.

"I believe that Mom's coming home," she said reassuringly, "and I believe that we can translate without having it become a permanent change to our genes. I've trusted Jeremy up to now, why shouldn't I trust him now? If translation is the only way to deal with these new Cobra soldiers, then I'll be the first to translate."

Jeremy looked at his girlfriend surprised, but then smiled. "Thanks for that, Aelita." With that, he called over a nearby trio of troops.

"Make sure this creep is locked up for good this time," he said gruffly. The officers saluted, and made off with Pynchev in tow. After that, Jeremy motioned to the gang, and they all filed out the building and back to the helicopter. Once the chopper started flying back to Sceaux, Aelita looked at Jeremy.

"Jeremy?"

"Yeah, Aelita?" he said, turning to her.

"I'm scared," she said. "Just when we finished our war with XANA, we find this war just around the bend."

Jeremy pulled his girlfriend in for a soft hug. "It's going to be alright, Aelita," he said. "War is scary, but all wars come to an end, and this will be no different. Once all this is over, I promise you that we'll all still be here for you… and I especially will."

* * *

**A/N: Cool, huh? What will happen to our heroes now that they're going into a war? Wait until next time and find out!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	9. Chapter 8: Translation and Transition

**A/N: I'm baaaaack!**

**I also don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 8 – Translation and Transition

Jim, who sat in the co-pilot seat of the chopper, was sorely miffed that he hadn't been let to see Jeremy's new skills in action, and he was further confused when the gang reemerged from the facility with a dark look on their faces, but his patience was rewarded when Jeremy said that they would be paying a visit to the headquarters of the Secret Police to prepare the gang for what Odd cleverly titled as the Fourth Cobra War.

"But why third?" he asked Odd.

"Well, the one Jeremy's grandpa fought in was the first," Odd replied, "the one his dad fought in was the second, so the one Jeremy himself fought in would be the third, right? So then that would make this one the fourth."

"Well, I guess that makes sense," Jim stated, "but I think I speak for us all when I say I hope this will be the last one."

"It will be," Jeremy said out loud, "I swear it." He added the last part with a harsh tone.

Soon enough, the helicopter came to a large complex of buildings, which was in a walled mountainous area, completely secluded from the rest of the city of Sceaux. The others gazed out the window in awe at the scenery, but Jeremy still had his focus on his feet, wondering how they would resolve this rekindled struggle. It was during the descent to the complex that the girls filled Jim in on the current situation.

"So, this place has the tech you need to fight these new mutant soldiers?" Jim asked, trying to piece all of this together.

"Yeah," Aelita said uncertainly.

"What is it?" Jim asked. "Did I miss something here?"

"Well, form what Jeremy said," Sissi explained, "if we use those scanners at headquarters to gain our Lyoko powers and costumes, not that I had any to begin with, that the transformation may not be able to be undone."

"Meaning that we may be stuck in our digital avatars for good," Yumi confirmed.

"Ouch," Jim winced. "That does seem bad."

"You bet it is!" Odd shouted. "How am I supposed to pick up girls with ears and a tail?"

"I said it's a possibility!" Jeremy shot back. "The only reason we don't know the effects is because Aelita's mother disappeared once she was virtualized. I'm sorry I told you guys this."

"Why's that?" Jim asked. "You'd want them to know something like that, right?"

"Yeah," Jeremy sighed, "but I thought that if I did tell them, then they'd never let me use it on them, and I wouldn't have the heart because I care too much about them." He turned to face Aelita. "I'm especially worried about you. If anything were to happen to you because of me… I don't know what I'd do." He looked down at his feet, and the pinkette placed her hand on his shoulder, at which he looked up again.

"I would be a fool not to trust you, Jeremy," she said calmly. "You've earned my utmost trust many times over. You've saved my life and the world more times than I can even count, and you're one of the strongest, smartest, most thoughtful, and most caring guys I've ever known."

He looked into her eyes and smiled. "Why can't I ever be upset when you say anything?"

"I guess it's one of my endearing charms," she replied, smiling herself.

"If you two lovebirds are finished," Ulrich said, "the pilot signaled that we're about to land."

"Right," Jeremy said, and stared out the window at the complex, getting closer with every second, until they made contact with the helipad. Upon landing, they were greeted by two neat rows of armed guards. When Jeremy exited the chopper first, the troops all saluted with their rifles in perfect unison, and the commanding officer shouted out, "We welcome you back to base, Captain Belpois, sir!"

"At ease, Sergeant Palum," Jeremy said, raising his hand. "Is anyone at the research facility today?"

"Affirmative, sir," the sergeant responded. "Lieutenants Belpois and Delmas are in there as we speak, having arrived here at approximately 1600 hours Paris Standard Time along with Commander Della Robia, and Agents Dunbar, Ishiyama, and Stern."

"Lieutenant?" Sissi asked. "Commander? What's going on here?"

"Didn't you hear anything when we said your parents were in the army?" Jeremy asked. "You already could guess from the 'rumors' that Odd's dad was a commander in the army. Well, he is, and your other parents are high up in the army as well."

"Oh," Sissi blushed. "Right, sorry about that."

"No problem," Jeremy waved. With that, they all filed inside the massive complex. At the end of a long, tall hallway was a thick steel door equipped with several different digital locks. Jeremy stepped forward and punched a series of numbers into the first lock, placed his hand on the second lock, placed a card over the third lock, removed his glasses and showed his eyes to the camera in the fourth lock, and finally moved to the fifth, and spoke into a microphone.

"Jeremy Belpois," he said loudly, and the door hissed and creaked, and slowly swung open. Jeremy led the team into a room filled with countless computers and a swath of technicians at each one, making sure everything was on top of its game, and nothing was going badly wrong.

In the middle of the room, where a huge machine filled up almost the entire space of the room itself, sat Jeremy's dad and Sissi's dad in military uniforms, and everyone else's parents in a set of black suits, except for Odd's dad, who was in an International Army Ranger uniform.

"Ah, so nice of you to join us, kids," Jeremy's dad greeted. "I heard all did not go well in Dijon."

"You heard right, pop," Jeremy stated, "Pynchev was an Agent."

"Well, damn, isn't that just great?" he said, half chuckling. "Things just got a lot more interesting, didn't they, son?"

"You can say that again," Jeremy replied. "But now we have to follow suit, in order for us to regain equal footing."

"Meaning…?" Mr. Delmas trailed off.

"They have to use the scanners to imprint their digital avatars onto themselves in order to successfully combat the Agents of Carthage." Jeremy finished.

"Agents of Carthage?" William asked.

"They're the term we've given to those whom XANA has given a piece of his powers to," Mr. Delmas explained. "We used 'Carthage' because XANA was supposed to be 'Scipio' and destroy 'Carthage', but instead he merged with it and became even more powerful and intelligent than anyone, even Waldo, could have ever imagined."

"Oh," William said. "I see."

"Well, I don't think any of us are too thrilled to be doing this translation thing," Ulrich spouted, "especially after what Jeremy said a few minutes ago."

"What do you mean?" Mr. Delmas inquired.

"I told them that if they went into this scanner," Jeremy said, "that they may never return to their original forms."

"Why did you say that?" Mrs. Dunbar asked. "You'd let them do this, even with that at stake?"

"Hey, we don't know that for sure," Mr. Stern defended. "For all we know, they could go back to normal whenever they wanted."

"Or they could even be deleted for good," Mr. Ishiyama added. "I knew this was a bad idea right from the start."

"Hold on there!" Mr. Stern shouted again. "If Jeremy says it may not be, then I believe him."

"Really?" Ulrich asked, surprised at his dad's sudden outbursts.

"Yes, really," his dad repeated. "It's time I put aside my pride and had faith in you kids. You've had good personnel up to now, why should now be any different?"

Jeremy looked at him. "Thanks, Agent Stern," he said, smiling.

"Heh, no problem, Captain Belpois," he grinned back.

"But if the translation may be permanent," Aelita stepped forward, "then I'll be the first to translate."

"Aelita, you can't!" Yumi shouted. "We can't allow you to be stuck in your own avatar for life!"

"Don't object," Jeremy interrupted. "Her mind's made up, and so is mine. I'm translating right with her."

"Jeremy, not you too!" Yumi pleaded. "This isn't the way to go about this!"

"We don't have a lot of options, Yumi," Jeremy said. "I want to make sure this works for you guys as well, and if being a guinea pig is the way to do it, then so be it."

The adult agents all nodded. "Well said, son," Jeremy's dad said. With that, Aelita and Jeremy stepped forward onto the platform while Michael gave the orders to the computer workers from his command chair. He started to type several intricate keystrokes, and then dwindled down to something much more simplistic so that the others could follow.

"Here goes," he said, cracking his knuckles before resuming the process.

"Transfer Jeremy. Transfer Aelita," he commanded. A strange light emitted from the platform, creating a barrier that started from the top of the scanner and was touching the bottom. The scanner itself was just a platform at the bottom, but an identical platform was hovering over their heads, attached to the ceiling by a metallic frame, with several wires and cables connecting to it. The barrier was a clear but bright white, so everyone could see inside. Lights were rushing up the barrier as Jeremy and Aelita grew brighter themselves.

"Scanner, Jeremy. Scanner, Aelita," Michael continued. The lights suddenly looked like they were sticking onto the twosome's bodies, and they grew even brighter, so bright that they could barely be seen without having to squint to the point where their eyes were closed.

Michael breathed a huge sigh as he hit the large 'enter' key. "Translation."

The barrier flashed for a few seconds, then instantly disappeared. When the crew blinked and steadied themselves, they saw the effects of the translation. Aelita and Jeremy stood before them, but in new, more powerful looking forms. Aelita had a newly altered version of her new Lyoko uniform, but her pink translucent skirt had become a solid dark purple one. Her bracelet also changed into an oval shape, with the star still on the display. Jeremy's outfit, however, was something no one but Aelita had anticipated. He was dressed in a skintight navy blue army suit with black army boots, a long black cape, which was blue on the inside, thick biker's goggles strapped on his forehead, and clips and holsters almost every small weapon imaginable almost covering his entire body. Lastly, the gang noticed three large sticks poking out from his back.

"Whoa," Ulrich said. "I don't remember Einstein looking like _that_."

"Well, that's because he's Jeremy," Aelita grinned. "He can do things like that."

"Do we get new duds, too?" Odd asked eagerly.

"Wait, what about his theory about translation?" William asked.

"Well, let's see about that," Jeremy said. With that, he punched a few keys on his wrist computer, and his and Aelita's costumes instantly disappeared, revealing their military uniforms.

"From what I can see," he said after a second, "there's no danger here. By the way, that was part of my powers. I could have used the main computer, but this was more fun."

"Then me next!" Odd jumped up.

"Hold on there, Mr. Impatient," Jeremy said. "Everyone can get on the platform without having to take turns. That's why this was built in the first place."

"Sweet!" Yumi said. "Let's go!"

"With pleasure," Jeremy smiled, and they all climbed onto the platform. "We're ready, dad!"

"Okay, here goes!" he said, grinning himself. "Transfer, Odd. Transfer, Ulrich. Transfer, Yumi. Transfer, Aelita. Transfer, William. Transfer, Sissi. Transfer, Jeremy." The lights returned, and the rest of the gang breathed in. "Scanner, Odd. Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Aelita. Scanner, William. Scanner, Sissi. Scanner, Jeremy."

"Translation."

When the lights disappeared, the Lyoko Warriors found their appearance had changed like Jeremy's and Aelita's. Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd had minor changes in their suits, but the real changes were remarked by each warrior to the other.

"Hey, Odd," Yumi snickered, "you lost your ears."

"Huh? Man, that's kind of lame," Odd commented, reaching up to his head. "Hey, looks like you've got a new toy strapped to your back, Yumi."

Yumi reached to her back, and grasped the hold of a long fuchsia Bo staff, which she pulled out and examined amazingly.

"Cool," she said, and then looked at the others. "Whoa, William! Your face is so… pale!"

William looked at himself in the reflection from the screen, and noticed he was in a suit which resembled his XANA-slave uniform, but with a triangle in place of the eye of XANA, but his face was a deadly white, as white as salt.

"I look like a Tim Burton extra!" he exclaimed. "Hey, Sissi, you look great!"

Sissi was dressed in a black skintight sleeveless jacket, with a matching skirt and leggings, black sneakers and black leather gloves.

"I look like Tifa Lockhart!" she said interestedly.

"You watched Advent Children?" Odd asked.

"My big brother got me into it," Sissi shrugged. "It was a good movie. Tifa's my favorite character from the game and movie."

"Maybe that had something to do with your look," Ulrich said.

"Maybe so," she agreed. "So, what's next, captain? No pun intended!"

"No pun taken," Jeremy smiled, "and the next step is to find their stronghold and take them down for good."

"How do we do that?" Aelita asked.

"We use these captured data packs," Jeremy said, pointing to the tray of flash drives, "to track their codes, and find the location of their headquarters."

"That's genius," Ulrich said, "but what happens when we get them?"

"Simple," Jeremy said, drawing his massive mechanical sword. "We bust their skulls."

"I like the way you think, Einstein!" Odd cheered. Just then, a series of alarms rang, and the screen in front of them showed a video feed of a group of armed men outside the French Military Academy and Museum.

"It's the Cobras!" Michael shouted.

"They must be going after the armory!" Mr. Delmas added.

"Then let's stop them!" Yumi exclaimed.

"Right," Jeremy replied. "Guys, follow me. We've got work to do."

With that, they charged out the R&D doors into the garage, which showed a machine that the gang had never seen before.

"What's that?" Sissi asked Ulrich.

"You've got me," he replied.

"It's the Megapod," Jeremy answered. "Our newest machine from the digital world of Lyoko. Four seats, bulletproof, able to travel land, sea, and air. Ulrich, you and Odd, Yumi, and Aelita will take this."

"What about us?" William asked, pointing to himself, Jeremy, and Sissi.

"You and Sissi take the Overbike and Overwing over there," Jeremy responded, pointing to the aforementioned Lyoko vehicles, materialized next to the Megapod, "and I take this." He pointed to a motorcycle with heavy armor, various holsters for weapons, and the eye of Lyoko on the hood.

"Nice bike," William grinned.

"It looks like Cloud's," Sissi added.

"I'll take that as a compliment, then," Jeremy said, climbing into his bike. "Just don't wreck the Overbike, William," he added, "or else Ulrich may have to kill you."

"No problem, Einstein," he said playfully.

"And now," Jeremy cheered, "let's rock and roll!" As he said this, he shot out of the garage, and raced down the streets of France, with the others catching up with him soon after. With a look of determination on his face, Jeremy squeezed the throttle on his bike, and the whole gang zoomed down the street, ready more than anything for what lied ahead.

* * *

**Ready for the next part? Well, sorry, I'm not that far yet... Just wait, it gets good!**

**BTW, I based the gang's new looks from Code Lyoko Evolution, which (I REALLY HOPE) comes out in France early this fall.**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	10. Chapter 9: Distraction and Destruction

**A/N: And here we are, less than a week later, with Chapter 9! I'm on fire, baby!**

**Unfortunately, I don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 9 – Distraction and Destruction

The alarms from the museum were at fever pitch and the droves of tourists were fleeing the building like cockroaches from a flashlight while the police tried to calm the throng. Armored cars had arrived on the scene long since the alarms were triggered, but they were being thoroughly repelled by the enemy's firepower. However, their luck changed when a large yellow four-wheeled tank-like vehicle arrived at the scene, followed by a one-wheeled motorcycle, a hovering machine, and a heavily armored motorcycle. The agents were further confounded when seven figures in strange uniforms emerged from the vehicles to greet them.

"At ease, agents," Jeremy said, holding up his badge. "I am Special Captain Jeremy Belpois, and these are my associates: Agents Ulrich Stern, Odd Della Robia, Yumi Ishiyama, William Dunbar, Sissi Delmas, and Aelita Schaeffer. We were sent here by HQ to take over the situation."

The head agent breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God you've come. The situation is totally beyond our control. The enemy has some sort of weapons that I've never seen the likes of, and their physical strength is completely unnatural."

"You don't know how right you are on that last one, agent," Jeremy said. "Please allow us support from the rear and radio for backup here to secure the premises and these civilians."

"Yes, sir!" that agent responded, saluting before dashing off to one of the armored cars.

"Let's get this over with quick, guys." Jeremy said to the gang, who followed him inside the museum.

When they entered the armory, which was located in the back of the facility, they were confronted with a considerably large number of Black Cobra soldiers, at least three dozen, which was a lot of people for that space. They were also getting good hits against the French soldiers who were trying to repel them. When the gang took a closer look, they saw that when the Cobra soldiers shot their guns, the bullets not only made large dents in the walls and floor, but they ripped through the soldier's shields very easily. The enemy troops were also shooting concentrated bolts of purple lightning, much like Pynchev, but theirs were slightly weaker.

"Let's get it on!" Jeremy shouted. With that, the gang charged into battle. Ulrich used his speed to get in close without getting shot, and sliced the guns with his swords. Yumi used the same tactic, but from a distance using her razor fans. Odd blasted his laser arrows into the barrels of other guns, causing them to explode. Aelita fired energy fields to disarm the grenades that the Cobra troops flew at their new enemies.

The most impressive thing was when Jeremy pressed a button on the hilt of his sword, and with one swipe, felled all the Cobra soldiers. Jeremy then ran over to the one who, from his armor, looked like he was in charge of the platoon, and grabbed him by his neck, and thrust him upward.

"Alright, you answer me right now," Jeremy quickly hissed, "why are you here? What is it that you are after that's here?" To prove his seriousness, he stuck his gun under the man's jaw.

"We… we don't want anything here…" the man gasped through labored breaths.

"Don't lie to me!" Jeremy shouted, slamming the man's head into the wall, and then holding one of his katana blades to the man's throat.

"We don't!" the man insisted. "This isn't even our real mission! We're just a decoy unit!"

"Decoy unit?" Jeremy repeated.

"The real job's being carried out by General Gio Missoula at…" he stopped. "A place you'll never get to in time."

"Try me," Jeremy growled, reapplying his sword at the man's neck and pressing the blade lightly into his skin while pressing the barrel of his gun into his temple. "Where is the _real_ attack happening?"

"It's…" he hacked, "at your military tech research laboratory."

Jeremy dropped the man to the floor in shock. "How could I not know this?" he yelled. "They lured us away from HQ so they could get the data packs without anyone being able to stop them! I've got to contact Dad and the others!"

As he began to run, Ulrich called out, "Hey, Jeremy, wait!"

"What?" he asked, spinning around.

"What about these guys?" Ulrich asked, pointing to the unconscious Cobra soldiers. "Aren't you supposed to take their data or something?"

"Oh, right," Jeremy said. He tapped a series of keys on his wrist computer, and cables shot out from his computer and each one attached itself to the backs of the necks of the Cobra peons and their commander. Within seconds, a stream of zeroes and ones traveled from the cables into Jeremy's wrist computer. After a minute, the glowing numbers disappeared, and the cables retracted into the computer, and Jeremy turned to the agents who had just gotten back on their feet.

"They've been disabled for now, agents," Jeremy informed them, "so make sure that when you check them into their new rooms at the compound, they stay there."

"Yes, sir," the agents responded, taking custody of the Cobra soldiers. With that, Jeremy turned to his friends.

"Now can we go save our families?" he asked grumpily.

"Yes, of course," Yumi said, holding her hands up, "but we couldn't have left those guys with their powers still intact. They'd break these guys in a heartbeat." She pointed at the agents.

"Er, right," Jeremy rubbed the back of his head. "Now let's go!"

The gang all nodded, and raced to the outside, where they each mounted their vehicles and sped back to the technology lab. Jeremy pressed a button on his goggles as he rode his bike, and the HUD display showed the image of his dad at the military base.

"Jeremy!" Michael said, grinning. "How was your first call back in action?"

"No time for shooting the breeze, dad!" Jeremy shouted. "The Cobras are swarming towards your location!"

"What?"

"The attack at the armory was a diversion to get us away from headquarters so we couldn't use our tech to take down the army that's coming for you!" he explained. "You have to make sure the base is protected and the data packs from the soldiers are safe!"

"Will do, son," Michael nodded. "Over and out." The screen vanished, and Jeremy gripped the handle bars tightly, and zoomed past the others, his face fixed in a single expression of fury.

"You're gonna regret the day you came back from the dead, Danzkhi," he murmured under his breath as his motorcycle shot down the road.

As the gang grew closer to the base, Jeremy's dad and the others' parents were making sure the safety precautions were in place: Michael, Tetsuo, and Jean-Pierre secured the data drives while Devon, Josef, and Arthur took charge of the base's defense systems.

"We have to make sure they do not get their hands on those drives," Michael commanded the other agents who were standing guard with him at the vault. "If they get the codes in these flash drives, we can kiss our ass goodbye."

"We will guard this vault with our very lives, Lieutenant," the head agent saluted to Michael. "We will never let, nay allow, these terrorists to acquire these data packs."

"Good work, soldier," Michael saluted back, "and may God help us all if they do or not."

Just then, a huge explosion ripped the door to the facility off the wall, and dozens of soldiers marched into the compound, led by a tall woman in full body armor.

"All right," she called out in a haughty Italian accent, "you _sciocchi _hand over the drives with the data, or else we blow this base sky high."

"You'll have to pry them from my cold dead hands," Michael retorted, "you Cobra slime."

"Oh, I'd love to do that," she smiled wickedly, and began to charge forward, cocking an AK-47 that she held. Just when Michael was about to give the order for retaliation, the barrel of Gio's rifle was sliced off by a flying razor disk. Everyone spun around to see the Lyoko Warriors at the entrance to the lab, with Yumi being the one who threw her fan to destroy Gio's gun.

"I don't think so," Ulrich said. "You picked the wrong base to crash, Cobra."

"You kids seriously think you stand a chance against the Black Cobras?" she laughed loudly, her hands crackling with purple electricity, even more violent than Pynchev's.

"We don't 'think'," Odd said, cocking his arm, "we know. Laser Arrows!"

Odd fired three arrows at Gio, but she dodged quickly, leaving a path of gray digital smoke. William swung his sword, causing a ripple of energy to shoot towards Gio, but she dodged just as easily, and rushed forward. She drew an SAA revolver, but Ulrich slashed at her with his sabers, knocking the gun out of her hands. Before she could retrieve it, Jeremy used magnet gloves to attract the gun to his hand.

"An SAA?" Odd teased. "That's a little old school, don't you think?"

"Just because the gun is old," the woman responded, "that doesn't mean it's not good."

"A lot of good it'll do you in prison," Jeremy said. "Now give yourself up or I take you out. For good."

"Not before I take what I came here for, boy!" Gio barked, thrusting out her hand. Without a warning of any sort, the gun flew out of Jeremy's hand and back to its owners' hand. Gio then jumped over the other's heads and shot across the room, heading for the door.

"She's going for the vault!" Jeremy yelled. "I'm going after her! You guys take care of the grunts!"

"Will do, Einstein!" Odd shouted back and Jeremy dashed after Gio. He caught up with her, just as she burst through the doorway by firing a 9mm bullet, charged by her XANA powers, through the door.

"Stop right there, Cobra!" Jeremy shouted swinging his sword at her. Then, the blade split in half, and a gun barrel came out from the middle of the newly opened blade. A huge fight ensued, and she knocked out the guards with her shock blasts, while Jeremy deflected the ones aimed at him and fired lasers from his sword, but she dodged easily.

"You think you scare me?" Gio laughed. "You may be a legendary hero, but you're still just a kid! And kids never win against adults!"

"Oh, really?" Jeremy asked with a menacing tone. He then shot a blast of lightning at the vault door from his sword, but nothing seemed to happen.

"What was that for?" Gio barked.

"That was to make sure you can never open it," Jeremy answered. "I magnetized the door to the frame so that no one can move it unless I turn the magnet off."

"Well then," she replied, "I guess I'll have to make you do it, you foolish boy!"

"Just try it, you true fool," Jeremy snapped darkly, and then pressed a few buttons on his wrist computer, which de-translated him.

"Who's the fool now?" Gio laughed. "You just threw away your greatest weapon!"

"Not quite," Jeremy replied. "There's another power I have, one that you can't even imagine, and you're about to see it for yourself."

"Enough of this nonsense!" Gio growled, rushing toward Jeremy. "Now DIE!"

When the Cobra admin got within three meters of him, her arm was caught in a strong vice grip, and she was hurtled to the ground.

"What…" she hacked. "How did you… who… what are you?"

"What I am," Jeremy answered in a low mingling voice, "is the instrument of your people's destruction." He then reached for another flash drive, and stuck it right under her neck, and a series of blue numbers raced from her body into the device. After a while, the numbers vanished, and Gio's eyes slowly closed as she fell unconscious. Jeremy then pressed a button on his belt, and changed back into his Lyoko form. He then revived the guards and tossed Gio's body to them.

"Make sure she's locked up tight, boys," he said heavily.

"Yes, sir," they nodded, saluting before heading off with their prisoner.

Jeremy made his way back to the main room, where the gang had nearly defeated the enemy soldiers. He pressed another pattern into his computer, and the cables shot at the grunts, shocking them before they collapsed and had their data extracted into the computer. He then took the same drive used against Gio and downloaded all the data into the drive before the cables retracted into the computer.

"Nice work, guys," he said clapping at his friends. "That's the last of this lot."

"So can we look at that info now?" William asked.

"What's she talking about, now?" Josef asked.

"I think she means we use the drives to read the info Jeremy diverged from those Cobra creeps so that we can find out where they're hiding and stomp them out for good." Sissi replied.

"Okay," Jean-Pierre said, rubbing his chin.

"And that will prove to be even easier since I extracted data from Gio," Jeremy added.

"How's that?" Odd asked.

"Well, two minds of memories are better than one, right?" Yumi said.

"Exactly the idea, Yumi." Jeremy grinned.

"So how do we do that?" Ulrich asked.

"Simple," Jeremy responded. He walked over to one of the computers, which had many USB ports for these devices the gang were using. He then plugged both of the drives into two separate ports, and a red light near the first, the one containing Pynchev's data clicked on first. The screen then flickered to life, projecting static at first, and then showed footage from Pynchev in a training hall with a few other Cobra soldiers, who were facing a tall female Cobra admin, flanked on each side by other admins. They were all giving the minor soldiers their training orders, and the soldiers followed in perfect unison.

"Get cracking, men!" the female admin shouted. "We're not going to realize our vision if you louses can't keep up with your training! You're dismissed for now, return to your barracks to await further instruction!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" the soldiers repeated together. As they left, still in synchronization, Pynchev was called by this woman with a hand gesture. He turned to his left, and marched up to him, saluting.

"You motioned for me, Commander Natalya, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, soldier," Natalya said. "Please have a seat." Pynchev pulled up a chair and sat down in it.

"I have a mission for you, soldier," she said, "that, if you succeed, will guarantee your place in our family."

"Name it," he said eagerly. Natalya then showed him a picture of a teenage boy with blond hair and glasses, at which the gang watching this video jumped at.

"That's Jeremy!" Aelita gasped.

"This boy," Natalya said, "has been a nuisance to us and our cause for too long. If you can take him out with the bomb-car we are sending you with, you're truly one of us. Now go!"

"Yes, sir!" Pynchev shouted, and ran off. The video was cut off there.

"Wow," Odd said. "So this Natalya chick is the one who gave Pynchev the order for the car bomb."

"Which means we will need to pay her a visit," Yumi added. "Now what about Gio's data?"

Jeremy nodded and pressed a button on the port console. The light next to her flash drive blinked, and another video showed up on the screen. This time, Gio was kneeling with Natalya and five other people in a dark room, facing a short withered man, sitting in a chair overlooking them all. It was doo dark to see his shape, much less his face, but they could tell that he was high up in the Black Cobras.

"You all have your orders, admins," the man said in a low raspy voice. "Now fuel my dream and change the world!"

"SIR, YES, SIR!" the admins responded, jumping to their feet, and saluting. The door opened, and light cast onto the man's face. When Jeremy saw it, he gasped and stumbled back in shock, almost falling on his bottom.

"That's… impossible…" he gasped, hazily. "He… he's… he's dead! He… he died thirty years ago!"

"Who did?" Ulrich asked.

Jeremy looked up at his friend, with a look that the gang had rarely seen in his eye before: pure fear.

"What's wrong, Jeremy?" Aelita asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"I… just have," he said distantly, and then stared blankly at the screen.

"That man," Jeremy said, pointing at the image, "is Kirk Fromm, founder of the Black Cobras."

* * *

**LE GASP! Guess he DID see a ghost after all! Wonder how all this is happening or what was happening to Jeremy when he fought Gio? Wait until next time for the answers to these and more!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	11. Chapter 10: The Binding Link of Carthage

**A/N: And HERE WE ARE WITH CHAPTER 10! The big 1-0! Who'd have thunk it?**

**If only I owned Code Lyoko, then it would be perfect. But as I don't, enjoy anyway!**

* * *

Chapter 10 – The Binding Link of Carthage

For a long time, no one, not even Jeremy, could even move. Jeremy's declaration sent shivers down everyone's spines. The man who had been manipulating the returning Black Cobras all this time was its original founder, and no one saw this coming.

"That man is Kirk Fromm?" Ulrich said. "How is that even possible? He's been dead for fifty years!"

"I don't know," Jeremy said, and then paused. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" Yumi asked.

"We didn't have the advanced DNA technology that we do now," Jeremy answered, "so maybe… we need to reopen the autopsy on Kirk's body. The morgue is in the basement."

"Eww," Odd said. "You've got his dead body lying around here?"

"Well, the Cobras did say they demanded his remains in the Second War, didn't they?" Sissi asked.

"That's right," Jeremy said. "But if he was still alive back then, then maybe they didn't know he was back yet."

"Well, there's one way to find out for sure," William said.

"Yes," Jeremy said, and then walked to a keypad in the wall. He punched a series of numbers, and a door opened up out of nowhere and the gang stepped inside. Jeremy punched a button on the wall marked "M", and the door closed, and they felt the sensation of a slow fall. The room was an elevator, and they were descending into the basement. When the moving stopped, the door opened again, and the gang filed into a clean room filled with hundreds of lockers, all inscribed with different numbers and names. Jeremy looked over a few rows until he came to one locker with a large Nazi Swastika painted on the door. The label read, "Kirk Fromm. D.O.D. April 9, 1945."

"What's D.O.D.?" Odd asked.

"It means date of death," Jeremy said, "It's the same day that Reverend Dietrich Bonheoffer was executed at the Flossenburg camp."

"Whoa," Odd said. "That's interesting."

"So what did you look for when your grandpa did the autopsy?" Aelita asked.

"He has a Swastika mark on his forehead, both his shoulders, and his chest," Jeremy replied, "which, to him, symbolized the sign of the Cross. This was his way of proving his holiness and that he was on the right track in his work."

"That's kinda twisted," Yumi said.

"Yeah," Jeremy agreed. "And if we look here…" He unlocked the door and opened it, showing a body bag on a drawer that went far into the locker. "This could be ugly, guys," he added as he pulled out the drawer and unzipped the bag. The gang cringed as the corpse's face was exposed to the light. Jeremy unzipped the bag to the point where they could see his chest and shoulders, and they saw the symbols that Jeremy mentioned there.

"They're here, all right," Ulrich observed.

"Yes," Jeremy added, "so how can Kirk still be alive?"

"Well, do you have a copy of his DNA that's not on this body?" Aelita asked.

"Fingerprints, hair, blood, you name it," Jeremy responded. "Now we have to compare it with this guy here to confirm if this man you see is Kirk or not." After putting on some latex gloves from his pocket, Jeremy then took some scissors and cut off a piece of the dead body's hair, and took a knife and cut off some skin, which had dried blood on it. He put these in a plastic bag, threw away the gloves, and turned to the gang.

"Now we just have to take this to the lab in downtown Paris and put an end to this mystery." Jeremy said.

"Let's do this!" Odd shouted, and followed the others into the elevator.

Once the door opened, Jeremy called his dad over.

"We're heading downtown, dad," he said. "We need to see about this autopsy."

"Well, whatever happens," his dad said softly, "I'm going to be there for you and your friends."

"Thanks, dad." Jeremy smiled, and gave his father a hug.

After a brief farewell from the gang to their own parents, the gang rode downtown to the center of Paris, where the military forensics laboratory was. After about an hour of riding, they stopped at the gates to the lab, and they were greeted by the agents in charge. The lead agent, who was dressed in a lab coat, stepped forward and shook Jeremy's hand.

"I received your memo, Captain," he said.

"Then you know what to do, Dr. Hemmeret," Jeremy said.

"Right," he replied. "Please follow me." He led the gang inside the lab and into a white room with several computers and microscopes and other assorted gadgets. The scientist, named Hemmeret, opened a case he retrieved from a locker in a huge closet, and placed the files from it and a test tube on the table.

"We never used our technology on his blood," Dr. Hemmeret said, "so if this sample you gave me isn't the same as this one, which we took from Kirk when he was alive after you jailed him, we'll know for sure." He stuck the first test tube into a machine on the table and stuck the one Jeremy gave him into another slot. He also placed the skin sample under the microscope, and turned to the gang.

"This will take a while," he said, "so please wait outside."

Jeremy nodded, and the gang filed outside. As they exited the building, Jeremy couldn't help but fell a chill run down his neck.

"What if he really is back?" he asked himself out loud.

The gang looked at him for a while, and the Aelita placed her hand on his shoulder.

"We'll make him wish he _did_ die, Jeremy," she said. "I promise you that."

Jeremy stared at her for a while, and then smiled. "Thanks."

Just then, one of the agents came out the door, and signaled for the gang.

"Captain!" he shouted.

"Yes, soldier?" Jeremy replied, running up to him.

"Dr. Hemmeret says his analysis is finished," he said, "and that you need to see the results."

Jeremy darkened, then said, "We're on our way. Come on guys." Me motioned for his friends, and they followed him back to the lab. When they entered the room, they noticed Hemmeret had a wild look in his eyes.

"Jeremy, you'll never believe this!" he shouted.

"What?" Jeremy said in a scared tone.

"There was another person in Kirk's cell when he was incarcerated!" he said, holding a piece of paper up. "Ludger van Kamp, cellmate of Kirk Fromm, was released on fulfilling his twenty-year sentence and was never heard from again. Dated June 4, 1974! This is his DNA!"

"Really?" Ulrich said. "But if that body was Ludger's, then how did he have Kirk's markings?"

"The paper says he tattooed them on when he was in prison," the doctor replied, "and that his likeness with Kirk grew more and more every day until he was released after Kirk was reported dead!"

William snapped his fingers. "He must have switched places with him before he died, and then he mixed up the medical records! It's the only logical explanation!"

"That must be it!" Jeremy jumped up.

"Now the only questions left here are; where is Kirk now?" Yumi said. "Where are the Cobras training? And are those places the same or separate?"

"He must be in a low area," Jeremy responded, "a place where a lot of people can gather without easily being seen, probably in a remote German suburb."

"Why German?" Sissi asked.

"Territorial pride or something," Yumi assumed.

"Actually, that's so he'd be close to home," Jeremy replied, "along with having the home field advantage."

"Strasbourg," Ulrich said.

"What was that, Ulrich?" Yumi asked.

"They're in Strasbourg," he replied. "I know it."

"Why there?" Odd asked.

"That's on the border between France and Germany," Ulrich answered, "which would give him the idea for two groups close to home. Plus, my dad was born there, and would take me and mom out there every summer when I was a little kid. My dad always told me never to go near that city when I grew up, but he never told me why."

Jeremy rose to his feet. "Then that's where we're going."

Jeremy and the gang ran out the door, but as Jeremy went through the doors, he felt something… very wrong.

"There's someone else here," Jeremy started, and then he heard a scream, turned around and saw his friends held in strong grasps with guns held to their temples by the men who held them. Jeremy heard a laugh and turned back, and saw one of the people from Gio's video-memory standing in front of him.

"We knew you would come, Captain," she said in a light Russian accent, "and we were waiting. I am Natalya Ivanovich, Belarusian agent of the Black Cobras, codename 'Black Nomad'. And I will kill your friends unless you do as I say."

Jeremy gritted his teeth. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to battle you, foolish boy," she laughed. "I didn't want to wait for you to come find me, so I found you!" She drew an AK-47 and fired at Jeremy, but he deflected the bullets with his digital shield. She snapped her fingers, and the men shoved the barrels of their guns harder against the gang's heads.

"Why are you even doing this?" Jeremy shouted.

"I want to see _him_!" Natalya shouted. "You want to have a chance to save them, boy? Then do that which I have heard so much about from you!"

"Not on your life," he hissed.

"You know you can't deny him, Jeremy," she taunted. "He's had his hold on you all this time, and you still refuse him. You, who gave into him not too long ago when you took down Gio Missoula. You, who have more power than all of us put together. You, who have even more power than both our leader and founder themselves. You, who unleashed the most powerful digital program to ever have existed… XANA."

"Jeremy," Aelita asked weakly, "what's she talking about?"

"Yeah," Sissi added. "What does this XANA guy have to do with you and power?"

"We've been watching you all this time," Natalya said, "and we know what XANA has given you. You have a gift, and yet you squander it. The choice is simple: give in or watch your friends die."

Jeremy looked at his friends for a long time, and then sighed.

"Commencing upload, Scipio 02. Power limitation at 40 percent confirmed."

Suddenly, his appearance changed, much to the gang's shock. His hair started to stick up, and the Eye of XANA appeared on the front of his uniform and on his forehead. He then drew his large sword, and it was jet black with the Eye of XANA on the base of the blade.

"You've just made a big mistake, Cobra," Jeremy growled with a voice that sounded like it was mingled with others. He then charged towards Natalya, knocking her down before she even had a chance to react, and then used the same device to attach to her neck, and the blue numbers flowed into it from her body, along with a flow of red numbers from Jeremy's body. After a while, Natalya slumped to the floor, and the changes that came over Jeremy vanished. Jeremy turned to face his friends, who looked shocked and amazed at the same time.

"Dude," Odd said, "did you just use XANA's powers against her?"

"I saw this thing once before," Aelita spoke up. "Remember when XANA electrocuted Yumi and poisoned Odd, and Jeremy and I went to Lyoko alone?"

"Yeah…" Ulrich said, unsure of where Aelita was going with this info.

"Well, when William attacked Jeremy," she continued, "he gained the changed you saw just now and struck him down in one blindingly fast and powerful blow."

"Well, that still doesn't completely answer the question, Aelita," Yumi quipped. "What was that energy, and how was Jeremy using XANA's powers just then?"

"Well, I didn't fully know it until Franz Hopper told me," Jeremy started, "but remember when I said XANA injected that virus in me with the headset when I first turned on the supercomputer?"

"Yeah," Odd said.

"Well, XANA did more than just put a virus in me to take my strength," Jeremy replied, "he made a link between me and him."

"What do you mean?" Aelita asked.

"Remember when we thought that you were linked to XANA before we knew you were human?" Jeremy added. "Well, though it's not like the way I thought you were, I am linked to XANA, and I have full access to all of his powers."

"WHAT?" the gang gasped.

"I know it's crazy," Jeremy said, "but I've done this thing before. I never liked it, but it is what it is. Those Cobras only got a small sample of his powers, but I got the whole pie."

"Pie?" Odd jumped up. "Where is it? I want it!"

"It's a metaphor, you idiot," Ulrich snapped as he slapped Odd upside his head.

"But what was all that about Scipio?" William asked.

"Well," Jeremy said, "XANA was meant to be the Scipio who destroyed Carthage, but he didn't, so he's like Scipio 00. Franz Hopper told me that there are five 'true Scipios,' and I'm number two."

"Well, who are the others?" Sissi asked.

"I don't know," he admitted, "but I do know what Franz – er, Waldo - told me. And that's that three, including me, are here, and that the other two are coming soon."

"Well, what's done is done," Aelita said, "and we have to focus on the mission at hand: taking these Black Cobras down forever."

Jeremy looked at her strangely. "You mean you're not…"

She smiled. "I'm not scared of what you became, Jeremy. Nothing could make me want to be afraid of you."

"Seriously?" he said, never taking his eyes off her.

She replied with a quick kiss on his cheek, at which he blushed profusely. "Yes."

Jeremy stood motionless for a minute, and then snapped to attention. "Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's bust some Cobra skulls!"

"Now that's the Jeremy I know and love!" Aelita cheered, and Jeremy blushed again.

"We all agree with that, Princess!" Odd added.

"Next stop for us: Strasbourg!" William shouted.

"And next stop for the Cobras: Hurtville!" Sissi followed up.

"Well, guys," Jeremy grinned, "I guess there's just one thing left to say:

Let's ride!"

With that, they leaped into their vehicles, and sped off towards the border, their eyes locked on the road ahead. Jeremy used his goggles to open a link with his dad back at headquarters.

"Hey, what's going on, son?" Michael asked.

"Kirk's still alive," Jeremy said.

"Really?!" Michael gasped. "I can't believe it!"

"We're heading to Strasbourg," he added.

"Why there?"

"Based on the info from the Agents," Jeremy replied, "we think that's one of their training camps."

"Alright," Michael said, "but call me if you need anything at all."

"Will do," Jeremy replied. "Over and out." He shut off the transmission, and zoomed down the Parisian streets with a look of steel.

_I don't know how you cheated death, Kirk,_ he thought to himself, _but I'm gonna finish you and your filth for good. And if that requires using XANA's powers to do it, then so be it. I'll do whatever it takes to stop you and save my home… and the woman who you wanted killed._

* * *

**A/N: Here's a rhyme I made for this:**

**Onward, Lyoko Warriors!  
Marching out**** to war!**

**BTW, here's a few references to my third Secret File, and to (spoiler) future chapters of this story and Stranded In the Void! More is yet to come, my head needs a rest from the sugar rush... Plz b patient...**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	12. Chapter 11: Recklessness and Restlessnes

**And here we are with Chapter 11! Woot woot!**

**Sadly, I still don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 11 – Recklessness and Restlessness

The gang rode for about an hour in silence. It was a very intense moment for them all. Not only had they learned that a man who had started a fifty year old war had cheated death to start the war all over again, but that XANA had, after his destruction, given Jeremy his powers as a memento when Jeremy gained his strength back that XANA had stolen from him. Although Aelita was not worried about the revelation of Jeremy's altered form, the rest of the gang could tell that it was going to take a lot more than Aelita to alleviate the turmoil inside their friend.

After the hours of silent riding gave way to a setting sun, Jeremy's goggles showed an image of Yumi inside the Megapod.

"Hey, Jeremy," she started, "We've been riding for a long time and it's getting late and Strasbourg is still really far away. Do you think we could find a hotel or something to crash for the night?"

"Huh?" he said, snapping to attention. "Oh, sure thing, Yumi. There's an Accor hotel at the next exit; we can stop there if you'd like."

"Accor?" Odd said. "That's pretty low-class for us, don't you think?"

"Well," Jeremy said, "it's either that or the really high-class hotels, and that's a little out of our budget."

"Don't you have a secret military account for these things?" Odd whined.

"Accor has good rooms for not a lot," Jeremy cooed into the com line. "They're not all like Hotel F1, you know. I have a friend who works in this nearby Kyriad Hotel, so he'll cut us a good deal."

"Sounds like a plan," Ulrich replied, then switched off the link. Jeremy sighed heavily, and then William pulled up next to him on his Overbike.

"Hey, man," he asked, "you hanging in there?"

"Yeah," Jeremy answered hesitantly. "I guess I'm really tired after all."

"Well," William replied, "we'll get some rest, get some grub in us, wake up, eat some breakfast, and head out to pound these clowns first thing tomorrow! Right, Captain?"

"Yeah," Jeremy smiled, and then looked ahead. "Oh, here's the turn. Signal the others."

William nodded, and turned to the others and pointed in the direction of the exit ramp. After that, they all followed Jeremy as he led them off the main road and down the road into the small town of Epernay. Not many cars were going by, and those that did were surprised to see the strange vehicles that the gang was driving. Odd couldn't help but smirk as he imagined what the reactions of the people would be if he could see them, while the gang inside the Megapod, and those listening in on the com link, laughed at his theories.

"I must admit," Sissi said, "that is funny when you really think about it."

"Well, what do you know?" Odd cheered. "I finally made her laugh!"

"Don't push your luck with me, scrawny." Sissi quipped.

"Hey!" Odd yelled. "I don't know how many times I have to say it! I am not scrawny! I'm just _svelte_. You know how many Americans would kill to look like me?"

"Please," Yumi sighed. "Give us all a break, would you?"

Everyone but Jeremy and Odd laughed loudly at this, while Odd simply pouted.

"Are we there yet, Jeremy?" Odd whined. "I want to get away from reality."

"It's at this next right, Mr. Escape Artist," Jeremy snickered, smiling again. He led them down a small road for a few minutes, and then turned into a parking lot for a small building with a sign on the outside of the property which read: "Kyriad Hotel and Breakfast."

"This is the place," Jeremy confirmed. "Everybody out."

"Dismount!" Odd cawed, jumping out of the cockpit of the Megapod. Yumi, Ulrich and Aelita followed. William and Sissi parked the Overbike and Overwing next to the Megapod. With that, Jeremy pressed a button on his gauntlet and everyone translated out of their Lyoko attire and back into their military uniforms.

"Wait," Odd started, "how do we change back?"

Jeremy tapped his gauntlet. "I just enter the code in while you guys stand in range of the computer, and you'll be translated again."

"Alright," Yumi said, "now let's book it."

They filed into the entry hall, and the desk worker looked up at them, surprised.

"Good evening," he said, "can I help…" he stopped, noticing one of the group's members. "Jeremy? Is that you?"

"Long time, no see, Luke," Jeremy smiled.

"Same here, kid!" the desk assistant cheered, shaking Jeremy's hand as he came up to the desk. "Last time I saw you, you were no more than nine and you were scrawnier that that guy there." He pointed to Odd.

"Hey!" Odd shouted.

"What are we missing here?" Sissi asked.

"Oh, sorry guys," Jeremy said, "this is my old math teacher from grade school, Kyle Madsen. Kyle, these are my friends: Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, William, Sissi, and Aelita." The gang waved back as Jeremy said their names.

"Nice to meet you all," Kyle said. "I assume you need a favor, kiddo?"

"Bingo," Jeremy replied. "We just need a place to crash for the night. The girls can have one to themselves, and we guys can have one to ourselves. Nothing too dingy or too fancy; you got some rooms like that?"

"It just so happens that I do," he grinned, pulling out two different keys. "You're in luck. Tonight is a special deal: get two normal rooms, get a second free." He pulled out a third key, and handed all three keys to Jeremy. "Your private room, son. My treat."

"Oh, I got this one," Jeremy said, "but thanks for sticking out for me; we just need room for one night, after all." Jeremy handed five ten-euro bills from his jacket pocket to Kyle.

"If you insist," Kyle shrugged, and he handed Jeremy a receipt and a few coins as his change. "Have a nice stay, kids. Nice meeting you all."

"Same here," William responded, following Jeremy and the others down the hall.

"Rooms 12A, 12B, and 12C," Jeremy pointed out each one, and gave Yumi the key to 12A, gave Ulrich the key to 12B, and kept the 12C key for himself. He looked at his watch, which showed 6:23 Parisian Standard Time. "Dinner's at seven, so we can relax for a while."

"Will do, Einstein!" Odd cheered, and ducked with Ulrich and William into 12B, while Aelita, Sissi, and Yumi began to enter room 12A.

"Hey, Yumi? Sissi?" Jeremy called to the girls.

"Yeah, Jeremy?" Yumi looked back at him.

"How about you girls take Aelita out for a walk around the town before dinner?" Jeremy asked. "It'll do her some good to see parts of this country she's never seen before."

"Why don't you go with her, then?" Sissi asked.

"I wish I could," Jeremy looked down, "but I don't feel too good. I'll do something with her later on, I guess."

"If you say so, Jeremy," Yumi said, motioning for the other girls to follow. Jeremy then entered his room and collapsed in the bed after changing into some night clothes. After a minute, he got up, folded his uniform, and placed it on a chair. After that, he glanced at his watch, which now read 6:28 PM.

"I need to get some rest," he groaned, before falling face first on the bed. _I can hardly believe it,_ he thought._ Just this morning, my friends and I were focused on passing our tests and getting into college. Now we're in the middle of an all-out war, not to mention the discovery of this 'gift' XANA gave me before he was destroyed. To top it all off, it's not just me who has this gift, but if they find out about it, what then? _After staring at the ceiling for what seemed like a fleeting moment, he heard Aelita's voice, mixed with Sissi and Yumi's laughter. Surprised, he glanced at his watch again, and this time it said 6:55 PM.

"Well," he said, "I guess I'd better get to the dining room before Odd eats us out of the place and our rooms."

He then got off of the bed, and walked out the door, down the hall, and to the dining room, where the others were waiting for him.

"We were worried for a while there, Jeremy," Ulrich said. "We hoped you wouldn't skip any more meals now that we don't have any more duties involving-" He stopped short after Yumi lightly poked him in the side with her elbow. Ulrich glared at Yumi for a second before the look she gave him made his face change as well.

"Oh," he said, slouching. "Sorry, forgot about that there."

Jeremy looked up. "It's all right, guys. Really, I mean it." He smiled as best he could, but everyone knew it was just so they wouldn't worry.

"Well," Sissi cheered, "I know you'll never beat Odd in pounding down that grub."

"I don't think so, Sissi," Yumi said. "He almost did at breakfast this morning."

"Seriously?" Sissi raised an eyebrow.

"He just got lucky, that's all!" Odd protested. "I am the Iron Gut!"

"Oh yeah?" Jeremy taunted. "Then how about we settle this with a contest? Winner gets the loser's dessert! That sound good, Della Robia?"

"Oh, it is on, Einstein!" Odd growled playfully, and the gang grinned and lined up to observe the competition. Jeremy and Odd each got a large helping of everything in the dinner bar: steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn-off-the-cob, and everything else they could get their hands on. After they filled their plates well past the brim, they sat down at opposite sides of one of the tables, with tall glasses of soda on either side of them, eyeing each other intently.

"Who do you thinks gonna croak first?" William asked.

"Before today," Ulrich answered. "I would have said Odd hands down. But now, I really don't know what to say."

"Well," Aelita grinned, "there's only one way to find out. Okay boys, start gorging…

NOW!"

Instantly, the two hungry boys started away on their bounty, Odd shoveling his in his with his bare hands, while Jeremy used his utensils so fast that they almost seemed invisible. A small crowd gathered behind the gang, drawn to this strange event. It seemed like only a few seconds had passed, though it was actually several minutes, when Jeremy stuffed down his last slice of steak, with a smidge of potatoes and two small green beans mixed in with it, and shot down the brown sticky liquid in his glass, after which he slammed it on the table with a satisfied look on his face.

"And Jeremy beats Odd's record time of five minutes and twelve seconds," Aelita cheered, "setting a new record of five minutes and two seconds! Jeremy wins by ten seconds!"

The whole crowd behind the gang burst into clapping, and Kyle Madsen came out from behind them all, clapping the hardest.

"I knew you'd win, kiddo," he said, grinning widely. "Even when you were a tyke, you knew how to put it away like no one else."

"Perfect," Odd growled, as Jeremy dove into the two slices of French Silk cake prepared as the ante.

"Don't be a sore loser, Odd," Ulrich chided, placing his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Jeremy won fair and square, and you should be happy for that."

"What's so great about losing that which I hold most dear?" he whined.

"What would that be?" William chuckled. "Your pride as a glutton, or your dessert?"

"Both!" he yelled, before blurting out, "Hey! I am no glutton! I'm just…"

"Perpetually hungry?" Sissi finished, at which everyone, except for Odd, laughed loudly.

"Alright," Jeremy said, holding his gut after finishing his and Odd's dessert, "that's enough excitement for one night, right? We've got a big day tomorrow, so let's get to bed."

Jeremy slinked back to his room as the crowd dissolved and the gang went back to their own rooms. He opened the door and collapsed on his bed, holding his stomach. A few seconds later, weary from these thoughts and the stress of the day and the eating contest, he fell asleep.

"_Where are the wolves?" the little elf asked, his dark purple eyebrows knitted together as his glassy brown eyes peered through the opening in the tree. His question was soon answered by a snarling noise, and then a hideous gray snout shoved into the hole, causing the elf to fall back inside the tree, scared to death. He let out a piercing scream as he prepared to give up and let the ravenous canine devour him, when he heard a slash, followed by a whimper, and then a thud. After a few seconds, the elf peered out from the hole to see a young human girl, no more than ten years old, with a drawn sword covered in hair and blood. He noticed that she had driven the blade through the beast's heart, and that there was only one wolf. She looked up at him, and gave a small gasp._

"_Is that you, Mister Pück?" she gasped._

"_Who are you?" the elf gasped. "And how did you know my name?"_

"_My name is Jeanne," the girl said, "and came to help you. We're friends, after all."_

"_J-Jeanne?" Mister Pück asked, remembering the girl's face. "Is it really you?"_

"_Yes," Jeanne replied, and extended her hand to the hole. "Do you want to come out?"_

"_Of course," he said, with tears in his eyes, and jumped into Jeanne's arms. "I was so scared," the small creature cried into his friend's arms. "I didn't think I would live to see you again. They chased me and everyone else disappeared. I was so alone for so long."_

"_It's alright, Pück," Jeanne calmly said, hugging the foot-high elf in her arms. "I'm here now."_

_Suddenly, there was a cracking of a twig, and the two friends spun around to see an enormous, jet-black, hooded cobra come out of the brush and hiss at them menacingly._

"_Nagina!" Jeanne screamed. "Run, Mister Pück!"_

"_No!" he shouted. "I can't leave you again!"_

_Unfortunately, their troubles were further compounded when yet another hooded cobra, even larger than the other but with a smaller hood, came up with the first one._

"_Nag, too!"Jeanne gasped."You have to get away from here! NOW!"_

_As she said this, Nag lunged forward and seized Mister Pück in his fangs, and he began to scream as loud as his lungs would allow. Nag then disappeared as quickly as he came, and Jeanne cried out to her friend, until the elf's bloodcurdling scream could be heard no more. Nagina then showed her gleaming yellow eyes at the girl and hissed wickedly as it crawled ever so closer to her. The poor girl thrust her sword at the demon, but it lashed forward, flinging the blade form her hand and lodging it into a tree too high up for her to retrieve it. It then advanced further on her, it eyes glowing even brighter, and she backed up until she hit the back of the tree._

_It was too much. First Pück, then her? What did these monsters want? Why did they even exist? Only one thing came to her. As the monster drew closer, she uttered an unearthly shriek. It was one that, if she was conscious of it, would shake the sky._

Jeremy woke up with a start and a huge gasp. The vision in his sleep was almost too much for him. Once his severe panting had stopped, he breathed in as he took in the familiar surroundings. He gave a sigh of relief.

"A dream," he said to himself. "It was only a dream."

He then fell back under his blankets, but with a burdened look on his face.

_It wasn't just a bad dream,_ he thought to himself. _It was a nightmare to possibly end all nightmares. I know what I have to do. The third and fourth Scipios are here, and I must make them aware of themselves. If we hope to survive the coming war, it's our only hope._

_Scipio 01, codename "Sorcerer"._

_Scipio 02, codename "Kresnik"._

_Scipio 03, codename "Gargoyle"._

_Scipio 04, codename "Valkyrie"._

_And Scipio 05, codename "Goddess"._

_I hope you know what you are doing…_

…"_Sorcerer" Waldo._

Putting that thought from his mind, he finally fell into a deep and silent slumber.

* * *

**Spoilers away! What happens next? Tune in next time and find out!**

**Three things I must say:**

**First, I am NOT implying a genderbender in Jeremy's dream, I just thought, "if Aelita dreams of Mister Puck, then he should dream something French-fairytale-like, so I went with a little blond-haired French girl, since that seems to be a thing."**

**Secondly, the hotels mentioned are real European chain hotels that I actually researched on for this chapter. (what whaaat!)**

**Finally, I did not intend to steal anything Trinity Blood-related, the series just inspired me with a good plot device. Besides, the big difference is that the Scipios aren't vampires, they are beings with direct links to XANA! Okay, now that that rant is over with...**

**-JeremyX signing off!**

**UPDATE - 8/23/2012: I changed Scipio 03 from "Berserker to "Gargoyle", and you'll see why soon!**


	13. Chapter 12: Birth of an Angel & a Demon

**A/N: I hope you understand that I do not mean anything insulting by the characters in this story. This is merely for entertainment purposes and do not reflect on any person(s), living or dead.**

**Also, I don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 12 – Birth of an Angel and a Demon

The next morning, the female portion of the gang awoke to the beautiful sound of Parisian music on the local radio station the alarm was programmed to. After a morning shower, the girls opened their doors to find Ulrich, Odd, and William, who were also looking very refreshed.

"Good morning, ladies," Ulrich said, rather suavely.

"Morning," Sissi said, still sleepy.

"You all right there, Sissi?" Odd asked. "A wake up call from Ulrich should have sent you spiraling in happiness!"

"Yeah, well a lot of things were in my mind," she wearily replied, "and it didn't sleep well with me."

"Please, Sissi," Aelita said, irate. "If you think you've got it bad, just think about how Jeremy is feeling right now."

Sissi paused for a while, and then slapped herself. "Oh, you're right, I'm sorry. I didn't think about it like that."

"It's all right," Aelita said. "It was wrong for me to snap as well."

"Don't apologize for that," Sissi said back. "It was my fault."

"Speaking of Jeremy," William said, "where is he?"

Before the conversation could go any further, Jeremy's room door opened, and Jeremy walked, or stumbled, out the doorway and into the hallway.

"Hullo, guys," he mumbled, weakly waving his hand. "Good mornin'."

"You hanging in there, Einstein?" Odd asked. "You don't look too hot."

"I just had a bad dream, that's all," Jeremy responded, his tone becoming more alert. "There's no need to worry about me, guys, I'm fine. Now let's get us some breakfast, and then get back on the road."

He walked down the hall to the kitchen, the gang following him unsteadily. They sensed that something was up with him; Aelita guessed it was his dream. Nonetheless, they let it slide as they filled themselves up on the endless pancake breakfast, thanked Mr. Kyle for his hospitality, and set off, back on track to Strasbourg. Jeremy led the group, while everyone maintained a safe distance as not to rattle him. However, after three hours of silence, Aelita finally decided to take action, and tapped into Jeremy's com link.

"Jeremy," she said sadly, "if there's something wrong, you know you can tell us."

"I just had a nightmare from eating too much," he grumpily replied. "That's all."

"It's more than that," Aelita insisted, "and you know it. Please, at least, talk to me. Let me help you. All I want is to help."

Jeremy stared into his girlfriend's eyes for a while, and then looked at William and Sissi, who were riding the Overbike and Overwing respectively next to him.

"Are you sure we can't be heard by the others?" he asked.

"I'm sure," she nodded.

"All right," Jeremy sighed. "I had a vision of that doll of yours, Mister Pück."

"Really?" Aelita asked, taking a moment to fondly remember the elf doll her father gave to her when she turned six.

"Yes," he said, "and the wolves came for him again, but they were slain by a young human girl with blond hair that looked a lot like me."

"Why do you say human?"

"Because Mister Pück is an elf, right?" Jeremy replied. "Anyway, they embraced for a while, but then a giant snake came out from the bushes, and took Mister Puck away before the girl could help her. Then its mate came out and lunged for her, she screamed, and then I woke up gasping for air. After a while, I fell back to sleep."

"Oh my gosh, Jeremy," she said, placing her hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," Jeremy smiled. "It was just a bad dream, but thanks for helping. Really, I needed that."

"Sure thing," Aelita said before cutting the link. Jeremy narrowed his eyes again.

_It wasn't just a bad dream,_ he said to himself, _it was a vision. No, more like a nightmare. I just hope it's not a prophecy._

Suddenly, the radio on his motorbike started crackling, and then he heard a police transmission spoken in rapid German and spoken again, slower, and in French. His eyes bulged out and he opened a link with the others all at once.

"Guys," he said, "we have a problem. Listen to this."

He pushed a button on his goggles, and the rest of the gang listened in on the police conversation. "Attention all units, we have a situation at the abandoned Saint-Raphaël Catholic Church on the border of Strasbourg. Civilian reports of armed unidentified people bearing strange weapons and are preparing to bomb the church grounds and sack the town. Civilians believed to be under fire from these individuals. All units please respond."

"Sounds like the Cobras to me," Odd said, "which means we've got a job to do."

Jeremy nodded, and they all zoomed off down the highway. Jeremy pulled up a GPS map on his goggles, and waited until a screen popped up with the image of a microphone.

"Saint-Raphaël Catholic Church," he spoke out loud, "Strasbourg, France."

The screen instantly showed a pushpin somewhere on the map, pinpointing the location of the church.

"I got the location, guys!" Jeremy said through the com. "It's just up ahead, past this exit!"

"Roger that, Einstein!" Ulrich said, and the gang zoomed through the next exit and shot down the streets. After twelve minutes of riding at top speed, the gang saw a flash of purple lightning in the far distance.

"Do you guys see that over there?" Sissi asked, pointing at the source of the flash.

"Cobras dead ahead!" Jeremy barked. He then squeezed a button on both of the throttles, and twin lasers shot out in the direction of the Cobra activity, and flashed when they hit.

"That should get their attention!" Ulrich cheered. "Time to kick some Cobra ass!"

The Megapod then shot forward, and Jeremy, William, and Sissi accelerated as well. Within seconds, they reached the site. Already, police agents were protecting the citizens while bombarding the agents with their meager line of fire. The agents, however, were repelling the police's attacks while preparing a large missile-like weapon that two agents were setting up, led by a man with dark colored skin and a short black beard. They could tell that he was the leader of the troop, and this man kept shouting out orders to the men in his command.

"Keep it up, loyal soldiers!" he shouted boldly. "Once we destroy these infidels and destroy this monument of unholiness, there will be great rejoicing with Allah!"

"Muslims," Ulrich said. "I always thought they were sneaky no-good criminals. They can spout all this 'peace and love with Allah' crap all they want, but that won't change that all the Taliban wants is to kill all the non-Muslims in the world as violently as possible."

"I got this one, Jeremy!" William shouted. "I can take the peons down with one swing of my Zwiehänder!" Before anyone could say anything in response, William charged into the fray, and swiped his massive sword, felling a large portion of the enemy soldiers. The Muslim commander turned to the intruders and scowled.

"Speaking of infidels," he spat, "I, Kumal Hadim, will take you vermin down in the name of the Black Cobras and the most holy name of Allah!"

"You first," Aelita gritted, charging at him herself. As she moved her hand over her bracelet, her wings expanded and she flew up into the air and fired an array of energy fields at the remainder of the army. But no sooner had she struck down one than two more came up from the church, equipped with strange-looking rifles.

"These must be the new weapons we heard on the report," Yumi summed up.

As if on cue, the Cobras positioned these rifles, and shot bolts of purple lightning at the policemen, but an energy shield from Aelita absorbed the blast.

"How are there more soldiers coming out," Sissi groaned, "and why are they coming out from a Catholic Church? I thought the Muslims hated the Catholics."

"We do," Kumal said, "but the Holy Lady Mary is our true protector, and she does not care for those infidel Catholics! They have rejected the word of Mohammed! He was Allah's greatest prophet and his one true Messiah, not that filthy Jew whom you call Jesus."

"You LIAR!" Aelita shrieked, charging at Kumal with her fists glowing brightly.

"Aelita!" Jeremy yelled.

"I got it!" William yelled, chasing after her. Suddenly, Kumal whipped out a portable rocket launcher and pointed it at the two Lyoko Warriors, grinning widely.

"ALLAH AKBAR!" he shouted, firing the missile, which exploded before it reached Aelita and William, sending a large cloud of smoke into the air.

"NOOOOO!" Jeremy cried.

For a sickening minute, he felt as if the world had stopped. But, in an instant, something happened. Two beams of light shot out from the cloud of smoke. One was pink, and another was strangely black, and both beams shot into the air for a brief moment and shot back down to earth. Jeremy and the rest of the gang drew back in shock, while the enemy line was blasted back by the force of whatever had emerged from the smoke cloud.

"You say the Virgin Mary is the reason for your actions?" a deep male voice rang out.

"Mary would be ashamed, no, she is ashamed at what you are doing," a light female voice added. "No mother wishes for her children to war with each other. You're using your religion as an excuse to slaughter any who do not share your beliefs."

"Your own brethren would recoil in horror at the carnage you are creating," the male voice said. "Even your father Abraham is looking down with shame from Heaven."

"And for these crimes, as well as the many other crimes you have made against the innocent…" the female voice added.

"You will be judged according to the will of the One True God," both voices said in unison. Suddenly, the smoke disappeared and two figures stood before the shocked Muslim troops.

One was rather tall and very muscular, with a Gothic looking uniform, bat's wings, and a long sword with black tendrils creeping up from the hilt to the tip of the blade. He had long black hair, piercing red eyes, fangs, and gave off an ominous black aura. The other one was a smaller, more feminine figure, but still with a lot of muscle for a woman, large white-pink wings, and had a sword and shield, both of which seemed to be made of pure silver. Like the other figure, she also had long hair and glowing eyes, but hers were both pink, and she had no fangs.

Jeremy did a double take, and saw that these strange people were in fact William and Aelita. Just then, the figures that were once William and Aelita raised their weapons and started chanting.

"_Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade, der Herr ist mit dir_," they recited in perfect unison. "_Du bist gebenedeit unter den Frauen, und gebenedeit ist die Frucht deines Leibes, Jesus. Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes, bitte für uns Sünder jetzt und in der Stunde unseres Todes._ Amen."

"Did they just say the 'Hail Mary' in German?" Odd asked.

"Yeah…" Jeremy said, still shaken. "What… happened to them?" he added to himself.

Quickly, the two charged at the Muslim army, with William dealing numerous casualties with just one swing of his sword, and Aelita striking the enemy from high above the ground and occasionally dive bombing into the enemy line.

"How is this possible?" Kumal shouted. "What kind of unholy warriors are you?"

"This is the power of Scipio 03," William answered.

"As well as the power of Scipio 04!" Aelita added.

Just then, a loud whining noise came out from nowhere and the gang on the ground plugged their fingers into their ears.

"Look to the sky!" Jeremy shouted, pointing at the sky.

What he had spotted were twin fighter jets marked with the Cobra's Star, the universal symbol of the Black Cobras. The shape was like an intricate pentagram, with the symbols of the branches of the organization in the five points of the star. The top left point bore the Nazi Swastika, the top right bore the Communist sickle and hammer symbols, the bottom left bore the upside-down moon and star of the Taliban, and the bottom right bore three capital Ks inside a triangle that was inside a gold circle. The middle of the star bore the image of a cobra's head, and the top point, which made the gang bolt in surprise, was the eye of XANA.

"They've added the Eye of XANA to the star!" Yumi gasped. "He really was involved with these guys!"

"It doesn't matter how many times the snake lashes out," Aelita hissed, her voice sounding like it was filtered with many others, "the hawk will always win and make the snake its dinner."

With that, she shot up into the sky, and slashed her saber at the twin jets, which were firing at her and at the Lyoko Warriors on the ground. At first, it seemed like nothing happened, but then both jets split in two and exploded before anyone knew what had happened. Kumal looked in shock at his army being reduced to nothing in almost no time at all. Aelita then landed, and the two beings who brought said destruction marched up to face Kumal, who was stumbling on the ground in fear.

"You are the supreme warriors of light and darkness!" he shrieked. "You are the Scipios which Major Fromm spoke of! Gargoyle and Valkyrie! MECRY! PLEASE SPARE ME!" He flung face forward and placed his hands in front of his face, shaking violently.

"Mercy?" William raised his dark eyebrow, with a hint of sarcasm in his mingling voice. "You didn't seem too keen on mercy when you attacked those 'infidels' at the church site, nor did you show mercy to the men trying to protect them."

"Enough, Gargoyle," Aelita's strange voice said. "We need him alive. Besides, if we kill him, we'll be no better than him."

"You have a good point, Valkyrie," William nodded. With that, he raised his hand and black vines shot from the ground and bound Kumal in a cocoon of earth.

"Jeremy," William called out to the shock-stricken captain. "You have a job to do."

"Yes," Jeremy said, regaining his look of fierceness as he walked up to Kumal's prison. As the man writhed, he also spat at the captain.

"You'll never win against our might, you foolish boy," he said harshly. "We will never fall down forever."

"We'll see about that," Jeremy said, taking out another flash drive and sticking it onto Kumal's forehead.

"_Allah Akbar_," Jeremy teased as the data flowed into the device. Within seconds, the flow stopped, and Kumal's head slumped down, unconscious. As the flow stopped, the changes that came over William and Aelita vanished, and they stood before their friends, who looked at them, utterly stunned by their previous actions.

"What Jeremy did back in Paris with that creepy XANA power thing was one thing," Ulrich said, "but what you two did just now was another thing entirely!"

"Yeah," Yumi said, "how did you two do that?"

"Well," Aelita said, "Jeremy said that two of the Scipios were already here, and that the Scipios themselves were people who were linked to XANA. I stayed up thinking about it. His link to XANA was through the virus, and then I remembered that William was once a host to XANA himself."

"So Aelita took me on that outing last night," William added, "and she mentioned this to me. I thought for a while, and said, 'Hey Aelita, weren't you linked to XANA as well?' And she thought for a while and concluded that it was sort of true. Not to mention, we received a private call the other night."

"From who?" Jeremy asked.

"It was," Aelita said, "from my dad."

"Franz Hop – er – Waldo called you last night?" Jeremy gasped.

"Yes," William replied, "and he told us about our links to XANA. She was linked after XANA took the Keys to Lyoko from her, and I was linked the day I was enslaved by XANA. This link is like having a part of XANA's powers infused within us."

"Like the Horcruxes?" Odd asked.

"Kinda, yeah," Aelita said, "except Jeremy's the only one who actually has part of XANA himself inside of him."

"Not for long, though," Jeremy gritted. "Once we're done with this war, I'm stripping myself of this curse."

"Don't be ashamed of what you are, Jeremy!" Aelita said. "Even if this link can't be broken, you shouldn't just throw something away just because it makes you different! That's why I like you, Jeremy! You're different and you won't let the XANA half take over you!"

Jeremy stopped for a while. "Are you serious? You'd still like me even if I were to keep these powers?"

"I like you powers or not," Aelita said, "but especially with them."

"Why?"

She hugged him. "So I always know you'll be there for me."

Jeremy couldn't move at first, but then hugged his girlfriend back. "Thanks, Aelita, I needed that."

"Alright, you two crazy lovebirds," Odd said, "we've still got a secret headquarters to find and wipe out!"

"Right," Jeremy said, and then turned to the police who were just getting back on their feet. "Make sure the people are safe and these creeps are locked up good, officers," he said, holding his badge at them.

"Yes, sir," the responded, and the broke into two teams: one dealing with the crowd and another dealing with the Cobras. With that, Jeremy signaled the gang and they mounted their vehicles again and rode off down the road, which rejoined with the interstate.

"To Strasbourg!" Jeremy cheered as they rode on, "and the end of the Black Cobras!"

* * *

**A/N: Here we go again! Scipios 03 & 04 have been shown at last!**

**Once again, I hope you understand that I do not mean anything insulting by the characters in this story. This is merely for entertainment purposes and do not reflect on any person(s), living or dead.**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	14. Chapter 13: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

**A/N: You've been waiting, and now, as a special Labor Day treat, I present the much-anticipated Chapter 13!**

**However, I STILL don't own Code Lyoko.**

* * *

Chapter 13 – Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

"It's too easy," Ulrich said.

The gang nodded in agreement. Since they had arrived at Strasbourg, they had easily been able to pinpoint the origin of the data extracted from the Cobra agents. The data led the team to a massive building, which was surrounded by a tall wired fence which was rigged with electricity. However, there were no guards posted at any of the entries, and Jeremy's scanner did not detect any radar system that would alert the soldiers inside of their new intruders. So, they had been standing there for a good six minutes, wondering what was going on in the compound.

"No one just leaves the entrance to a secret base wide open so you can just walk right in," Yumi said. "There's something about this that isn't right."

"Whatever's happening on the inside," Jeremy said, "is something I'm going to find out."

Jeremy then darted past the gates, and went along the outside of the fence until he reached a steel wall, which was part of the building. He then motioned for the gang, who followed him to the wall.

"How do we get through this?" Sissi asked.

"Simple," Jeremy said, motioning to a large pipe protruding from the wall. The gang noticed that the pipe had a large fan inside it, which blew hot air at their faces.

"Metal Gear sneaky style, huh?" Odd grinned.

"Exactly," Jeremy grinned back. He then used his massive sword to slice the fan out of the vent, crawled inside the pipe, and looked back to the others.

"You guys coming or what?" he asked.

"You bet!" Ulrich nodded, and they all filed into the pipe behind Jeremy.

The tunnel was very long and twisty, but it wasn't too cramped, and they managed to make their way through, barely making any detectable sound. After what seemed like a long time when it was only a few minutes, they came to an intake valve for the pipe, which was pointing down. Jeremy motioned for the gang to halt, and peered down just over the edge of the pipe and noticed the vent was on the ceiling of the inside of the building.

"Stay back," Jeremy said, "I need space for this."

As the gang shuffled back further, Jeremy pulled a small gadget that looked like a can opener and stuck it on the vent grating. At first, the gang didn't see anything, but then they heard a small buzzing noise, and they saw that the can opener was really a miniature buzz saw which was shredding away at the metal bars while Jeremy held onto the majority of the vent so that nothing would fall when the saw got through the whole thing.

Sure enough, they heard a small clang, and Jeremy lifted the grating into the tunnel and silently placed it to the side, while motioning for the others. They all moved forward and looked down at the ground, which was several meters below them. They also noticed that there were no soldiers on the ground or even a single tank or jeep.

"No one in here, either?" Ulrich said. "Now I know something's up."

"How do we get down there without making too much noise or attracting attention?" Yumi asked.

"Our suits jam outside radar signals," Jeremy said, "and this will help us get down."

He pulled out a device that looked like a large yo-yo from one of his pockets, and placed the main part of it on the floor of the pipe. He then pressed a button on the face which faced them, and they heard a small 'clunk', and Jeremy took the string and stuck a metal loop at the end of the string onto his index finger, and stuck his legs out of the newly made hole, and used the yo-yo rope to rappel down to the surface. After reaching the floor, he released the device, which noiselessly shot back up to the vent. The gang then nodded and used the same method to descend to the ground themselves. First Aelita, then Ulrich, then Yumi, then Odd, then William, and Sissi came last, rappelling down rather nervously, and falling on her bottom with a thud.

"Sorry," she blushed, getting up. "I never tried that before and I was a little scared, so…"

"It's all right," Jeremy waved. "I'm not calling you out or anything."

They looked around, and still nothing out of the ordinary met their eyes. The room they had entered was a large room, but it didn't have a lot in it beyond leftover material form what they used to build the support beams.

"The data led us here," Jeremy said, "so where are the machines and the soldiers?"

However, when Jeremy and the gang looked behind them, he noticed a large stage with an immense television screen that could easily dwarf any screen at American Football stadiums.

"Well," William observed, "there's something that we didn't see from our previous perspective."

"That's kind of a tongue twister," Odd said.

"Knock it off, screwball," Ulrich snapped. "We have to find out where everyone is and know if this is where the data signal truly originated."

"Why don't you just take a look around for yourselves?"

The unfamiliarity of this voice was enough to make the whole gang jump in shock. Suddenly, a throng of soldiers swarmed into the room from every angle, and then every door around them slammed shut behind them. The gang was trapped. Just then, the screen in front of them crackled to life, projecting an image of two people, One was a middle aged man with a thick mop of black hair, sharp violet eyes, and no beard or mustache, but with thin black shadow. The second person was a very old man with shriveled features, a grayish blonde crew cut and mustache, and stern blue eyes. Though the gang had never seen him before, Jeremy growled very deeply.

"That guy's Geraldo Danzkhi," Ulrich said.

"So who's the other one?" Odd asked.

"Kirk Fromm," Jeremy hissed.

"Guilty as charged, captain," the raspy voice of the former Nazi and founder of the Black Cobras said. "While my soldiers distracted you, and quite well I might add, I rallied my greatest forces to enact my greatest plan of all!"

"What plan is that?" Aelita asked.

"Why don't you take a look for yourselves?" Danzkhi grinned, and the screen showed a new and terrifying image: a massive army of Cobra soldiers were marching on the way to Paris, with several fighter jets and helicopters following the army from above and tanks and jeeps following the army on the ground. The gang could see countless civilians fleeing for their lives and houses shut and bar their windows.

"Oh no," Jeremy gasped.

"But where did all of them come from?" Yumi asked.

"They came from here of course, little girl," Danzkhi sneered as his face and Fromm's face came back into vision. "We were able to mobilize our troops and usher them out of our fortress and to your precious capital city while you brats were sawing logs and sucking your thumbs in your sleep."

A lot of the gang growled at this, but Jeremy's eyes widened. _My dream! _he thought to himself. _They did do this while we were asleep! That would explain the jets and numbers at the church, along with the comments they all made about how we couldn't stop them! It's because we would be led here and trapped while they destroyed Paris using XANA's powers!_

"This whole thing was a set-up!" Jeremy shouted. "We didn't need to destroy your fortress because you already cleaned house! You lured us here so we would be out of your way and unable to save our country!"

"Please," Fromm spat. "You can't save what can't be saved. Your pitiful country is going to get the swift justice it deserves. There will be war, and it will be great, but short and sweet. And once we win, the rest of Europe will follow and the world will be ours for the taking! Colonel Mendel, tell your men to fire at will! Farewell to you and your friends, Captain Jeremiah Belpois!" He raised his hand in the Nazi salute as the army in the building raised their weapons in salute as well.

"SIEG HEIL!" Fromm shouted at the top of his lungs. The men loudly repeated "SIEG HEIL!", and the message cut off.

"Men!" Mendel shouted, and the men readied their weapons. The leader then raised his hand, and pointed at the gang.

"FIRE!"

"Aelita, now!" Jeremy shouted.

In an instant, the two threw up an energy shield to deflect the barrage of oncoming bullets. The surface of the translucent sphere pulsed with each hit, but it didn't budge towards breaking. Jeremy and Aelita winced with each hit, and the rest of the gang could see that they were struggling to keep themselves on their feet.

"It's working," Jeremy said, "but we can't keep this up for much longer! We need a solid plan of attack if we want to escape with our lives!"

"But they're not letting up their fire in the least!" Odd said. "How do we shoot at them if we'll only end up getting shot first?"

"There's got to be a way to fight back!" Sissi said.

Jeremy looked up, and glanced at Aelita and William, who looked at him as well.

"There is," he said.

William and Aelita looked confused, but then nodded, and Aelita turned back to the field.

"Guys," Jeremy said, "we have to deactivate the shield."

"What?!" Ulrich yelled. "Are you out of your mind? We'll get blasted to bits without the shield!"

"Not exactly," Aelita said. "We can get rid of the shield by turning it into a giant plasma blast sphere and releasing it at the army. Once we do, we'll apply our true plan."

"What's that?" Yumi asked.

"Just watch," Jeremy said, and clenched his fists.

Suddenly, the sphere expanded to cover twice the area it covered, but the men kept firing as hard as they had, but their faces were filled with uncertainty of what was happening. Inside the sphere, Yumi, Ulrich, Sissi, and Odd saw Aelita, Jeremy and William close their eyes. While Jeremy and Aelita managed the rapidly growing shield, William just stood perfectly still. After a minute, Jeremy, Aelita, and William's eyes flew open.

"Commencing upload, Scipio 02. Power limitation at seventy-five percent confirmed!"

"Commencing upload, Scipio 03. Power limitation at seventy-five percent confirmed!"

"Commencing upload, Scipio 04. Power limitation at seventy-five percent confirmed!"

The shield shattered around the Cobra troops, some of whom were hit by the shards of the shield, but the rest saw three new figures in the room that had clearly not been there before, or at least not with that appearance. One was a dark-suited warrior with bat's wings and a large sword, the other was a hot pink angel with a straight long sword and a large shield, and the third was a tall cloaked warrior with purple lightning running off of his body and a staff that had the Eye of Lyoko, but a huge curved blade came from the bottom lashes.

"The scythe's a new thing," Ulrich whispered to Yumi, who nodded.

"What…" Mendel stuttered, "What is this new devilry?"

"This is the power of the Scipios!" Aelita declared.

"This is the true form of the power you claim to possess!" William added.

"And this is the power that will lead to your destruction!" Jeremy finished.

"Now fall!" they shouted in unison.

"FIRE!" the soldier yelled.

The sound of hundreds of bullets being fired at once filled the air as the enemy charged at the three warriors. Mendel took up a grenade launcher and fired it directly at Jeremy's head. A huge cloud of smoke erupted from the blast and blocked the warriors from view. Just as Mendel and his soldiers were about to give a mighty shout of victory, a huge gust swooped the cloud away, and the Lyoko Warriors appeared, along with the Scipios, completely unharmed.

"Our turn," Jeremy snickered, and he, Aelita, and William plunged into the fray.

"Let's back them up!" Ulrich shouted to Yumi, Odd, and Sissi, who just stood in their places.

"Right!" Odd cheered, and the four warriors charged towards the enemy line.

Ulrich used his speed and reflexes for close-quarters combat with the Cobras, dashing towards them before they could react, and slicing their weapons before knocking them out. Yumi kept a safe distance by throwing her fans to disarm the soldiers, and also using her telekinetic powers to bend some of the spare beams around the Cobras. Odd darted around, firing well-aimed laser arrows into the barrels of the guns, which exploded on contact, sending the Cobras reeling backwards and into Sissi's powered-up fists.

The Scipios, however, were fighting with a much different strategy. William swung his large sword with both hands very swiftly, which caused an energy wave that knocked down several Cobras at a time. Aelita deflected the bullets the Cobras were firing at her with her shield while flying at them, firing energy blasts at some and slicing down others with her sword. Jeremy shot multiple blasts of lightning at the enemies and sliced the bullets with his scythe before they even came close to him.

Within several minutes, everyone but Mendel was defeated, and Jeremy's scythe grew vines at the bottom of the staff, which hitched themselves to the fallen Cobra soldiers. The vines started glowing blue, and after a while they disappeared and the vines retracted into Jeremy's scythe. Drained of their strength and their inhuman powers, the enemy soldiers all dropped to the floor, unconscious and very badly injured. When he saw the power that was displayed against his men, Mendel backed into the wall in utter fear as the three warriors advanced onto him.

"What… what kind of power is this?" he hacked, half crying in fright. "I could never have even imagined anything like this. If not even Major Fromm or Major Danzkhi have power like this, how could you?"

"Well, Kirk doesn't actually have part of XANA himself inside of him," Jeremy said. "That's one thing."

"Also," Aelita added, "he doesn't deserve to even have the powers he has now. He has shamed his people and shamed the world with his sick, twisted vision of this world."

"Now you will pay the price he will pay for the crimes you have committed against the world," William said, pointing the tip of his sword at the man's neck.

Mendel grinned slightly. "It is you who will pay for the sins of your kind."

"Oh?" Jeremy raised an eyebrow. "And how, pray tell, will that be accomplished?"

"Like this!" he snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, a huge blast of energy soared towards the three transformed Lyoko Warriors. They deftly avoided the attack, but then Mendel got up and gave off similar flashes of lightning that Jeremy, Aelita, and William were giving off. A loud boom noise was heard and the Warriors looked up to see the ceiling groaned and looked ready to split up.

"If I'm going down," Mendel yelled, "you're all going down with me!"

"He's trying to bring the building down on us!" Ulrich shouted to the others.

"Not if we have anything to say about it," William growled.

William and Aelita raised their hands, and chains of energy shot out of them, binding Mendel against the wall. Once he was secured, Jeremy walked up to him and clutched his throat firmly.

"Never count us out until the fight is done," Jeremy said, "because arrogance is a warrior's worst enemy in battle."

As he said this, his eyes began glowing, and Mendel's eyes glowed with his. After a while, the glow faded, and Jeremy released his captive, who slumped to the ground, free of his chains. After a while, Jeremy, Aelita, and William returned to their normal forms and turned to the gang. Another creak erupted from above their heads, and they looked up to see the ceiling looked ready to give way any second.

"Wait a minute," Sissi said. "Why did you go back to normal if the ceiling is still going to collapse on us? Didn't you have a plan for this?"

"The transformation endurance is limited to our personal endurance," Jeremy said, "which is constantly drained the longer we stay in our forms."

"Besides," Aelita added, "if we want to be able to use our powers against Kirk and Geraldo, we need all the energy we can get."

"So you can't do anything to stop the ten-ton building from falling on our heads?!" Odd yelled.

"Maybe they can't," a deep male voice rang out, "but we can."

The gang jumped at the sound of this new voice, but to Jeremy and Aelita, it sounded very familiar.

"Who is that?" Ulrich called out. "Show yourself!"

"Of course, Ulrich," the voice replied.

Suddenly, a large blue swirling portal opened up in the room right in front of the gang, and they jumped in shock. A minute later, a large vehicle burst out of the portal, and slowed to a stop before it crashed into the wall. Everyone but Sissi did a double take. The machine that emerged from the now-closed portal bore an uncanny resemblance to their virtual submarine, the Skidbladnir. However, it was very different as well. For one thing, the Navskids looked less like individual pods and more like they were just part of the ship. For another, the main portion of the ship was larger and more open, almost to the point where more than one person could fit inside it.

"It's good to see you all again," the voice said again. The gang then realized that it had come from the ship.

"Who's in there?" Yumi asked.

"I suppose it's time we introduced ourselves," a feminine voice said.

The gang heard a loud hissing noise, and a door at the side of the ship opened, and five figures emerged. Three of them were young children, no more than twelve. One of these three was a young man in a white uniform with pale green hair and blue eyes, and another was a little girl in a white dress with olive hair and violet eyes. The third was a slightly older girl with bright blue eyes and a blue headband that held her long blonde hair out of her eyes. She also had a deep blue shirt that covered a light blue dress.

However, the other two figures were adults, and were two figures that everyone but Sissi knew very well. One was a middle-aged man in a white lab coat with a red vest underneath it and khakis. He also had a mop of gray hair, a thick solid dark gray beard and dark shades. The other figure was a tall woman with long pink hair, bright green eyes, a long sleeved gray hoodie, and faded blue jeans.

Although the gang had never seen the children before, Aelita gave a small gasp when she noticed the two adults with them. Everyone but Sissi looked just as shocked as well.

"Who is that?" Sissi whispered to William.

"I think that's…" he started.

"I don't believe it…" Yumi gasped.

"It can't be…" Ulrich said.

"But it is." Jeremy said.

Aelita walked up to the two, shaking, but with awe.

"D-Dad?" she breathed. "M-Mom?"

* * *

**Aaaaaand, here we are! The reunion you (hopefully) saw coming! But even with this happy moment, will our heroes be able to return home to stop an all-out war?! Wait and see!**

**P.S. If you want to know who the second girl is, wait until I finish "Stranded in the Void", because the end of that story is where this ends as well!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	15. Chapter 14: A Timely Reunion

**A/N: Here it is! After almost two agonizing (for me) weeks of thinking and brain-wracking, Chapter 14 is here! This is where my side story, "Stranded in the Void" leaves off. I ended it there because there was truly no more to tell with that story.**

**I don't own Code Lyoko, otherwise you'd be reading the cool novels in English.**

* * *

Chapter 14 – A Timely Reunion Spoiled by War

The man – who was in fact Waldo Franz Schaeffer, creator of Lyoko and Aelita's father – smiled warmly at Aelita. "Hello, Aelita."

"DADDY!" his daughter squealed, running to him. She thrust her arms around her father, enveloping him in a strong and warm embrace, and crying tears of joy.

"You've gotten so big and strong now," he said, returning the hug. "I'm so proud of you."

"Jeremy was right," she said, still crying. "You did come back. I missed you so much, daddy."

"I missed you too, sweetheart," he replied, tears welling up in his eyes as well.

"Well, what am I, chopped liver?" the woman asked playfully. Aelita walked away from her father and hugged her too, as the woman hugged her back. "It's good to see you again, sweetie."

"Mommy…" she cried happily. "I thought you were gone forever. For so long, I didn't know what I would do without you."

"It's all right," Anthea Schaeffer hushed into her daughter's ear. "It's all in the past. Your father and I are here now, and that's what matters."

"Uh, not to interrupt what I'm sure is a touching reunion," Odd said while pointing up, "but I might have mentioned that there is a TWO TON BUILDING ABOUT TO COLLAPSE ON TOP OF OUR HEADS! You said you could save us, so please do so now!"

"All right, already," he said. "I can't stop the building from collapsing, but we can still escape from it before it caves in. Everyone, get in the ship." Waldo dashed inside and motioned for the others, who followed quickly. After they all got in, Waldo shut the door behind them.

"Maria!" Waldo shouted. "Open a portal and get us out of here!"

"Roger!" she shouted, and pressed a few buttons on a large control panel. "Chaos Control!"

The nose of the ship shot out a thin beam of light which produced a swirling mass of energy as it struck one of the walls.

"Full speed ahead!" Waldo shouted, and he threw the throttle stick forward as hard as he could, and the ship darted forward into the vortex. Within seconds, they exited, and the gang saw that they were on the outskirts of the Black Cobra's headquarters. But just as they realized this, the building went up in flames as the ceiling caved into the building, which triggered a massive explosion. The gang looked around and breathed a sigh of relief.

"If we stayed in there much longer, we'd be goners," Yumi said.

"Thanks, dad," Aelita said, hugging her father once more.

"It's the least I could do, sweetie," he said. "As for your friends, I bid you welcome to the Skidbladnir."

"Wait a minute," Ulrich said, "what do you mean that this is the Skid? I thought it was destroyed."

"Your Skid is," the creator of Lyoko replied, "but this Skid was built before your Skid."

"It was?" Yumi asked.

"Yeah," Anthea replied. "We've been using it to travel through the Network for the past few days now. I used it for weeks before then."

"You did?" Aelita asked.

"You'd better believe it," the green-haired girl said cheerily.

"Say, I don't mean to be rude or anything," William said, "but who are you kids exactly?"

"Oh, sorry," Anthea said. "I got so caught up with the moment that I forgot about the crew of the S.S. Skidbladnir! Why don't you introduce yourselves to everyone, kids?"

"Sure," the boy said. "I'm Noah Kaiba."

"My name is Amber Fuji," the little girl added.

"And I'm… Maria," the other girl said, rather nervously.

"It's all right," Anthea said. "They're our friends; you can tell them your last name."

"Okay," Maria said. "My last name's Robotnik."

"Noah Kaiba, Amber Fuji, and Maria Robotnik…" Yumi said. "What interesting names."

"Yeah," Jeremy added. "What's even more interesting is that I know who you all are."

"You do?" they all said in unison.

"I do," Jeremy responded. "Amber's the daughter of Dr. Julian Fuji, an expert in Pokémon genetics research. Noah's father was Gozaburo Kaiba, founder of the military weapons-maker turned game company Kaiba Corporation. Finally, there's Maria Robotnik, granddaughter of Professor Gerald Robotnik, who created the space station known as Space Colony ARK."

The kids all looked shocked that Jeremy knew about their history, but the gang didn't look too impressed. In fact, they looked confused by his words.

"Why is all that important?" Sissi asked.

"Because they're all supposed to be dead," Jeremy answered.

"What?" Aelita gasped.

"It's true," Amber said. "Noah and I died in separate car crashes ten years ago, and Maria was killed fifty-six years ago when Space Colony ARK was shut down because of the military shutting down Project Shadow."

"Fifty-six years ago?" Yumi gasped.

"Yeah," Waldo said. "Well, the thing is we've been travelling through time."

"Travelling through time?" Odd snickered. "Even I know that's a load of baloney!"

"Well then, how else would you explain how we're here?" Noah said, raising an eyebrow.

The gang was silent for a while, but eventually Jeremy spoke up.

"We'll get to the explanations later!" he said. "We don't have any time to waste!"

"What do you mean?"Anthea asked.

"We've just learned that, before the Cobras trapped us in their soon-to-be wrecked base, they sent their entire numbers on a one-way trip to downtown Paris!" Jeremy shouted. "They're going to invade the city and destroy the houses of the government! The Élysée Palace, the Palais Royal, the Palais Bourbon, the Palais de Justice, you name it!"

"What?!" Waldo roared. "That is taking things too far, Fromm! You're going to wish you did die when I get through with you!"

"I'm making a call," Jeremy said, sitting down in one of the command chairs.

"To whom?" Anthea asked.

"My boss," he replied, and then spoke to the computer. "Connect to INTERPOL Chief Agent Harold Augustus."

The screen flickered for a while, and then the image of an aged man with a clean cut of white hair, a bushy white mustache, and thick-framed glasses appeared on the screen.

"Captain Belpois," the man said, with a light French accent. "It's good to see you again."

"No time for small talk, Major General!" Jeremy said. "The Cobras are on the move! They're about to swarm the city of Paris! You need to mobilize all available manpower you have and get them there now! There's not a second to waste!"

The man looked shocked for a minute, but then nodded. "Understood, Captain. Get here as soon as you can. Augustus over and out." The image blacked out, and then Jeremy began typing again.

"I've got to call dad," he said. "He'll be able to get men out there just as fast." The screen flickered once more, showing the image of the brown-haired man.

"What's up, Jeremy?" he asked.

"There's really bad news, dad, that's what's up!" Jeremy replied. "The Cobras are about to attack Paris any minute! You need to evacuate any and all civilians and get them to safety!"

"Copy that!" Michael replied, and the screen blanked again.

"We've got to get back to headquarters," Jeremy said, and Waldo nodded.

"But that's two days away from here in Strasbourg," Aelita said. "Even if we use the Skid it will take us a long time to get back home."

"And another thing; what about our vehicles?" Yumi said. "We can't just leave them where they are!"

"Oh, right," Jeremy looked up. "Maria, do you think you could use that… what was that?"

"Chaos Control," the girl replied.

"Chaos Control," Jeremy repeated. "Do you think you could use that to teleport us and the Skid to headquarters in Paris? They're just outside!"

"I suppose I could," she said, tapping the same sequence of keys, which opened up a portal outside similar to the one she previously used to warp the Skid out of the building.

"We'll move the vehicles through the portal," Jeremy said, motioning for the others to follow him out of the Skid. Once they all mounted their respective vehicles, they, along with the virtual submarine, shot through the portal. The swirling vortex filled their field of vision for a few minutes, and the gang saw was similar in appearance to the tunnels used to travel from sector to sector on Lyoko.

Soon enough, though, a bright white light came from afar, and the light became a window, which showed an image of the Gendarme Nationalé headquarters in Paris, where the gang had began their whole ordeal. The Skid lurched forward, and hovered above an empty spot near the entrance before landing on a large empty parking space, where the guards standing there were rather comically astounded by its sudden appearance out of thin air. As the gang emerged from the machine, the door to the compound opened, and the parents of the Lyoko Warriors emerged from it, and ran towards their children, hugging them tightly once they reached them. Chief Harold Augustus, who also came out from the building, smiled from the side.

"Thank goodness you're all okay," Mrs. Delmas said.

"We heard about the incident outside Strasbourg," Mrs. Ishiyama added, "and we just heard about the explosion inside Strasbourg at the Cobra's old base."

"We're just glad you're all safe," Mrs. Dunbar sighed.

"Next time," Mrs. Della Robia said, "don't leave us like that without leaving a note."

"And don't go more than a day without contacting us in one way or another," Mrs. Stern said.

"Leave it to our mothers to worry about us like this," Odd grinned.

"Speaking of mothers," Aelita smiled, "guess whose mother – and father – showed up at the Cobra base and saved us?"

"No telling," Mrs. Belpois said. "Who?"

"Perhaps I should show you myself," Anthea called out, and she and Waldo emerged from the Skid to meet gasps of surprise and looks of utter shock from the gang's parents and Chief Augustus.

"Waldo?" Mr. Delmas gasped.

"Is that really him?" Mr. Dunbar looked at his wife.

"Who'd you expect?" Waldo playfully answered, "Jerome Mouscadet?"

No one could hold in their excitement, and they all rushed forward to greet their childhood friend, Michael hugged Waldo firmly, and everyone else just shook his hand rather hard. However, when Josef Stern looked at him, his face was very… well, stern. He placed his hands on Waldo's shoulders, and to the surprise of all assembled, gave him a strong punch to the gut.

"How could you do that to all of us, and more importantly, to your wife and your daughter?" he yelled angrily. "Do you have any idea how much we were worried about you?"

No one could speak for a while, but then Josef pulled Waldo into a tight hug. "Don't you ever do that again, do you hear me Brainiac?"

"Okay," he said weakly. "You're suffocating me, Josef."

"Heh," he smirked, releasing him. "You really haven't changed at all, have you?"

"I suppose not," he replied.

"Enough with the small talk, people!" Jeremy shouted. "Need I remind you that _the Black Cobras are on the move to Paris as we speak_?"

"Oh, right," Waldo said. "Everyone, back inside HQ."

They all rushed into the compound, and a screen showed the massive army of Cobra soldiers marching through the streets to Paris. The cars that once drove on it were overturned by what appeared to be an extremely powerful burst of wind, but there was static running from the light sockets.

"We have to make sure that once we burn them out this time," Waldo said, observing this with a look of disgust on his face, "those scoundrels will never rise from their ashes again."

"But how will we do that?" Sissi asked. "There's, like, a million of them and only a few of us!"

"Not to mention every time we get an advantage," Ulrich added, "they have a better plan."

"We have an advantage now," Jeremy said. "There was no conceivable way to escape from that building because the exits were sealed off by bomb-proof doors, right? They must think that we got crushed in that building."

"So they won't be expecting us?" Yumi asked.

"Hopefully," Jeremy replied. "At least we partially have the element of surprise. They will mostly expect a small army of the Gendarme Nationalé, but they will never expect any of us, or you two to be in the battle," he pointed to Waldo and Anthea. "This opportunity may give us the upper hand."

"So, they may expect you," Amber said, "but they won't expect Mr. or Mrs. Schaeffer?"

"Precisely," Jeremy grinned. "They also won't expect the fact that they are the first and fifth of the Scipios."

"Wait a minute," Michael said, "what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh," Jeremy groaned, forgetting that he did not inform his father of his newly discovered powers. "I forgot that I didn't tell you about that yet. You know that the Cobras have part of XANA's powers inside them, right? Well, Waldo, Anthea, William, Aelita, and I have all of XANA's powers inside us because we've had a link with him at one time or another. Waldo was XANA's creator, Anthea was kidnapped by XANA, William was XANA's slave, and Aelita was injected with XANA's code when he possessed her to destroy the sectors of Lyoko."

Jeremy looked at the ground as his face darkened. "As for me, I was injected with XANA's viral code the second I turned on the supercomputer. XANA used me as little more than a human battery to power himself up when his energy dwindled. I got it back after he was destroyed, though. However, he copied the rest of his code onto the data of my energy that he stole form me to match the piece of his code that was already inside of me. Once I got my energy back, courtesy of Waldo, the two pieces became one, and now I literally have XANA sealed inside me. We can access his powers whenever we choose. We call ourselves 'Scipios' in our transformed state because General Scipio of Rome was sent to destroy Carthage, being the military project in this time. Technically, XANA is a Scipio, but he's Scipio 00 because he became a sort of Hannibal in the sense that he joined with Carthage instead of destroyed it."

"Okay," Michael said, still looking confused.

"We'll explain the rest of it later," Jeremy waved, "but now we have a war to stop. Chief Augustus!"

"Captain?" he saluted in response.

"Prepare to mobilize the entire Gendarme Nationalé Fran_ç_aise," Jeremy barked. "Tell them what they will be fighting against: an unknown number of genetically enhanced human soldiers and highly intelligent robotic creatures that vaguely resemble animals. Take no prisoners. Make sure they get every word and convince them of the truth if they do not believe you. Also, make sure that they take extra weapons and armor into the battle. Believe me, they will need them."

"My friends and their parents will accompany me into the battle," he continued. "Your orders are to remain here in order to maintain the base's security and contact the president concerning the progress of the operation. Also, keep an eye on these kids," he motioned to the juvenile crew of the Skidbladnir. "They already died once, and I don't want it to happen again. The president has given me control of this mission and I am responsible for all of its functions. Do I make all of this clear to you, INTERPOL Chief Harold Augustus, Major General of the Gendarme Nationalé Fran_ç_aise?"

Harold saluted. "Crystal clear, INTERPOL Agent Jeremiah Marquis Belpois, Captain of the Gendarme Nationalé Fran_ç_aise."

"Good," Jeremy replied.

"Wait," Amber protested. "Why do we have to stay here? We can fight! Let us help!"

"I know you can," Jeremy said, in a much calmer tone, "but war is ugly when children fight. Believe me; I take that from personal experience. You'll be much safer here than you will out there. Besides, you have duties that you need to fulfill on your own places. You can't fulfill them if you die again."

"Heh," Noah chuckled. "Okay, you win. We'll stay here. You've got this under control. Just promise you'll come home safely and without any serious injuries, Mr. Schaeffer. You too, Jeremy. That goes for all of you, too."

"No problem," Jeremy grinned, turning to his friends. "Are you guys ready for this?"

"Oh, we were born ready, Einstein!" Odd cheered.

"Then let's suit up!"

With that, Jeremy led the gang to the huge door to the base's armory, and Jeremy punched in a series of numbers, let a machine scan his handprint and his eyes, and spoke into a microphone.

"Jeremy Belpois," he said loudly.

The door hissed open, and the gang was met with tall walls and long rows of ammunition, armor, and other supplies. The gang went from one end of the room to the other, picking out the weapons they desired and the equipment they would definitely need. After about two minutes of selection and clipping everything onto their uniforms, the gang exited the armory, and Jeremy led them back to the heliport. dozens of fighter jets were lined up, their pilots on the ground awaiting their orders. Also, the Skidbladnir was next to the helicopter at the edge of the heliport. All of the men on the ground saluted Jeremy as he and the rest of the gang marched onto the heliport.

"All fighter pilots mobilize," Jeremy barked. "We are at war! The enemy is the Black Cobras! We will not take them in this time. This time, we will take them down! Are you with me?"

"SIR, YES, SIR!" The men and the gang saluted.

"Then let's ride!"

Jeremy, Aelita, Ulrich, Odd, Yumi, Sissi, William, Waldo, and Anthea piled into the Skidbladnir while the other gang member's parents climbed into the helicopter, which took off instantly after they got inside it. The fighter pilots mounted their jets and flew off after the helicopter, and the Skid turned on its cloaking device before following them. Jeremy, who sat on one of the chairs of the Skid, looked at the closely incoming scenery of downtown Paris.

"Get ready, Fromm," he growled. "I'm coming for you."

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**A/N: Aaaaand here we go to save the world! The end is fast approaching, so please stick around for the explosive finale!**

**Dear God, this story has taken me four years to finish. Granted, I didn't do anything for two of those years, but this was not easy! I feel like Yugi when he was about to solve the Millennium Puzzle! I hope you will enjoy this and all my stories to the end!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	16. Chapter 15: The 4th Cobra War, Part I

**A/N: After many deliberating and debilitating hours, the first chapter of my five-part finale of my first story is FINALLY HERE!**

**P.S. Code Lyoko is the property of MoonScoop, France 3, and Canal J. ****The author of this fanfiction story, JeremyX, is in no way, shape, or form, affiliated with any of the aforementioned comapines. This is merely a story for the author to express his imagination. Please support the official release.**

**(Especially with the upcoming CL Evolution!)**

* * *

Chapter 15 – The Fourth Cobra War, Part I

The ancient man leered at the city from the window of his airship. He always hated the city, its people, and its leader's attitudes towards his views of what the world should be. But now, he was about to change all of that forever. No one would dare to stand in his way now. After all, he had an army of cyber-genetically enhanced warriors on his side, along with a legion of powerful robots created by a powerful program that he got his new cyber powers from as well as his army. As he grinned, he looked at his adorned dark green Nazi uniform and gripped his Swastika medal tightly.

"I haf fulfilled your command, _mein Führer_," he said to himself in a thick German accent. "Soon, Europe vill burn, und after that, zhe vorld vill feel our wrath, und once it falls, no one vill oppose zhe Third Reich ever again. Zhose others, zhe Communists and zhe Muslims, have served their purpose, and vill be allowed to share in zhe Reich as equals to me in power. After all, ve all share a common goal: to rid zhe vorld of those who dare to stand between us und vhat is rightfully ours."

As he finished, a black robed man came up behind him, and saluted.

"We have prepared everything as you requested, Major Fromm," he said, with a hard Arabian accent. The old man, Kirk Fromm, turned to the man who spoke and smiled.

"Vell done, Major Danzkhi," he said. "Und vhat of Herr Captain, Jeremy Belpois, und his friends?"

"They have been disposed of," Danzkhi said. "Colonel Mendel boldly gave himself up to see to that."

"Very vell," he grinned. "Zhen let us move on vith our attack!"

A screen popped up, showing the entire army of the Black Cobras, ready to march at Fromm's command. He raised his arm in the Nazi salute and the army did the same.

"Forward, bold soldiers!" he barked. "For conquest, for victory, and for our cause! SIEG HEIL!"

"SIEG HEIL!" the men replied, and they marched down the streets to meet the city limits of Paris. Fromm leaned back in his chair and grinned darkly.

"_Dein_ _Kampf __ist nicht__vergeblich gewesen_," he said aloud in German. "_Dien Kampf ist Mein Kampf._ _Gott est will_."

A troop of three heavily armed soldiers stood outside the city of Paris, having been given strange instructions first by Chief Harold Augustus, and then by President Jeromé Romaine Keller himself. Both men had said that there was a vast army of enemy soldiers heading for the city who intended to burn it, and eventually all of France, to the ground. They also said that the soldiers in question were 'digitally enhanced' and would exhibit 'abnormal powers' and the French National Guard agents assigned to the city must be extremely cautious when fighting them, and to 'kill them the second they set foot on French soil.'

"What do you think the chief meant when he said 'digitally enhanced soldiers'?" one soldier asked another.

"Man, I don't know," the other one replied. "I've heard of and know about 'physically enhanced', 'mentally enhanced', heck, I even heard of 'chemically enhanced', but 'digitally enhanced' sounds more like a re-mastered old movie or video game and less like an army."

"Uh, maybe not, soldier," a third soldier called out. He was looking through binoculars and shot up when he saw something on the horizon. "Agent Shackloft!" the soldier called to the man behind him, Ryan Shackloft, who was the commander of the troop stationed at their location.

"What is it, soldier?" Ryan Shackloft asked, running over to the soldier who cried out.

"There's something out there you need to see!" he said, handing the binoculars over to the federal agent. When Ryan saw through the device, his eyes widened behind the magnified lenses.

He was staring at an immense crowd of soldiers, all of which were in jet-black uniforms. Some of them had red bands with Nazi Swastikas on their right arms, others had red bands with a gold hammer-and-sickle logo on it, others wore white turbans on their heads, and others wore tall, pointed white hats. However, every soldier had three things in common aside from the black uniforms and the Cobra Star emblazoned on said uniforms. First, there was the number and size of their weapons. Secondly, there was the expression of pure hatred mixed with a weird form of ecstasy on their faces. Finally, which was the most alarming to Ryan, was the fact that each and every person was flickering and giving off static electricity.

"So this is what Jeremy meant," he said to himself. He then turned to the soldiers. "The enemy approaches! Alert headquarters and the other outposts… and prepare to fire at will!"

At the table in the meeting room at the French National Guard headquarters in the center of Paris were seated the country's best military and political leaders. Each branch had their own space, and each space took up a third of the table. Major. General Harold Augustus sat across from the head. From the Legislative branch, there was the President of the National Assembly and the President of the Senate. From the Judicial branch, there was the Chief Justice from the French Supreme Court and an assembly of the chief justices from the Courts of Assize, Audit, and Pleas. From the Executive branch, the Prime Minister, François Lux, sat right next to Jeromé Romaine Keller, President of France.

"So," the president heaved a sigh, "the Black Cobras are on the move again, are they?"

"Yes sir," Augustus replied, "but this time they're even more dangerous than before."

"How so?" President Keller asked.

In response, Augustus took a folder from his briefcase and slid it down the slick, well polished, Maplewood table towards the leader of France. He hesitantly opened it and was confronted with pictures of a large building in the Boulogne-Billancourt area of Sceaux. The outside was nothing remarkable, but the pictures of the inside were something the casual observer didn't expect to see. In an underground room in the compound, there lay a large supercomputer, the likes of which would have never been seen before by anyone but those in the room. The files also showed design pictures of various robotic creatures that bore resemblances to ordinary animals and insects. The last file showed two pictures: one of a middle aged man with his wife and ten-year-old daughter, who shared her mother's bright pink hair, the other of the same girl with six other kids, four boys and two girls. One of the boys, a blond-haired one with thick-framed glasses, was smiling very widely with the pink-haired girl, who was smiling just as widely back at him.

"Project Carthage and Lyoko?" the President looked confused. "What does all of this have to do with the Cobras?"

"Well, you no doubt know about Captain Belpois' involvement with Lyoko," the INTERPOL agent replied, "and that the Cobras were the ones pulling the strings on Project Carthage."

"Yes, I do," Keller replied.

"Well, these agents had somehow been infused with the powers of XANA before he was destroyed," Augustus said. "Kirk Fromm was connected to XANA after he escaped from prison and…"

"What do you mean he escaped? He's alive?!" Keller stood up. "I thought he was dead!"

"We all did," Harold said, "but he switched places with a doppelganger of his in prison, and the 'doppelganger' was released on June of 1974."

"You mean he switched places with a look-alike in prison?" the president asked. "How did the medical records get confused?"

"He _is_ Kirk Fromm, you know, sir," he replied.

"Good point, General," Keller mused, rubbing his shadowed chin. "Is there any chance I could get in touch with Captain Belpois and/or his fellow agents?"

"They're on the field of battle as we speak, sir," the general replied. "Do you want me to contact them by our com link?"

"Yes, immediately," Keller replied.

General Augustus pushed a button on a phone-like device on the table, and a screen popped up behind the president, who turned to face it. The screen showed a satellite image of Jeremy at the outskirts of the city, along the Rue de Paris. Surrounding him was a small army of soldiers, each one armed to the teeth and sporting weapons that were flashing with lightning. Also with him were the same six children from the picture, as well as the two adults, and ten other adults, each one in army uniforms and heavily armed. A ringing noise was heard from the room, and Jeremy moved his hand to his left ear.

"Hello?" he said, and the men in the room could hear him perfectly and see him say it on the screen.

"Agent Jeremy Belpois," Keller said clearly.

"President Keller? Is that you?" Jeremy jumped, and the gang next to him jumped as well.

"You're talking to the president?" the boy with the yellow spiked hair gasped.

"Greetings, fellow agents," the president said. "This is President Jeromé Romaine Keller. I am contacting you from the Executive cabinet's private line, and I have the leaders of all the branches of our government and military in the cabinet room with me. We would like for you to fill us in on the current situation."

"It's not a good one, sir," Jeremy said. "As you probably know by now, Kirk Fromm has returned with a full army of Cobra soldiers at his side. Bu this time, he has digitally mutated them to give them inhuman powers so that no ordinary weapon can stand against them. However, my friends, Aelita Schaeffer, Ulrich Stern, Odd Della Robia, Yumi Ishiyama, William Dunbar, and Sissi Delmas have the resources we need to pull the plug on this insurgency for good."

"How do you plan to accomplish that, Agent Belpois?" Keller asked.

"You know my friends have been to the virtual world, Lyoko, right?" Jeremy asked.

"I do," Keller replied.

"Well, we were able to materialize their powers in that world and give them the powers in this world," Jeremy said. "With these abilities, we will be more than a match for the Cobras and their new weapons."

"New weapons?" Keller asked. "Don't you mean 'new soldiers'?"

"Actually, Fromm has managed to materialize the monster robots that XANA created to battle us on Lyoko," Jeremy explained, "and they are marching towards the city with the soldiers. We dealt with materialized versions of these robots before, but we will be even more prepared against them now that we have our Lyoko powers on Earth."

"That's a good thing to hear, Captain," Keller replied. "I assume that's everything that can be said about the situation?"

"Yes, sir," Jeremy nodded.

"Then you must use any and all means to eradicate these terrorists forever." Keller said. "For Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, we wish you Godspeed, Captain Belpois. We all salute your service to our land."

"_Je vous remercie,__Monsieur le Président__,_" Jeremy said, saluting before the video feed was cut off.

Jeremy touched a button on the device in his ear, and turned to the others. "Well, that was the president. He said to use any means necessary to destroy the Cobras for good."

"Sounds like a plan," Ulrich grinned, brandishing his twin katana blades.

"Don't look now," William said, pointing up, "but I think we may have to implement that plan sooner than we thought."

They all looked to where he pointed, and saw a swarm of flying insect monsters flying towards the city.

"Hornets!" Yumi said.

"That's not all!" William said, pointing elsewhere. They then saw, along with the Hornets, some strange flying creatures with sharp-looking legs and with pointed heads.

"Inzekts?" Odd said. "I sure haven't seen those in a while!"

"Big deal!" Odd shouted, cocking the laser arrow blasters his wrists. "We'll blast those bugs out of the sky one way or another!"

With that, he fired three powerful blasts and took out a large number of the monsters. But no sooner had he opened fire than the other monsters started blasting lasers at the gang. They all dodged easily, but the blasts caused considerable damage to their previous location.

Sissi couldn't help but let out a gasp of shock. "Whoa! Did the ground on Lyoko explode when you fought these things?"

"I don't think so," Ulrich admitted, "but maybe these things are different in the real world!"

"All the more reason to take them out before they reach the city!" Yumi added, charging into the fray by throwing her fans at the monsters, which were easily shredded by the razor-sharp flying discs. As she recalled them, she noticed large machines on the horizon.

"Hey guys, tanks ahead!" she called out, pointing to the distance. They gang looked in that direction, and could see not just the tanks, but also a number of large black spheres rolling in their direction. Once they stopped, they opened up from the middle, and showed that insides of the machine: a mass of red veins and black wires plugged into a vertical ring with the Eye of XANA in the middle.

"There aren't just normal tanks over there!" Jeremy said. "There are Megatanks too!"

"Man, I hate those things," Jeremy growled. "Don't worry, guys! I got them!"

With that, he drew a huge blaster and fired three consecutive shots, which took out three of the Megatanks with dead-on accuracy. After the Megatanks fell, the gang also saw a horde of large, four-legged creatures with a white eye of XANA on their heads and a small circular mouth that seemed to be dripping molten lava.

"Volcanoids?" Yumi added. "I haven't seen those since that trip to the Volcano Sector!"

"There was a Volcano sector?" Sissi asked.

"Yes," Odd said, "but as Jim would say, we'd rather not talk about it, at least not now."

"I got these guys!" Ulrich called, running towards the volcanic monsters. "Triplicate!" In an instant, three Ulrichs were moving towards the enemy line, and before the enemy could react, three of the ten Volcanoids had fallen. He then rushed top one of the tanks next to the Volcanoids, jumped onto the tank, sliced the barrel clean off, and thrust both of his katana swords into the top of the tank. Jeremy fired more rounds at the enemy, defeating most of the Megatanks and Volcanoids and blasting a large number of the Hornets and Inzekts out of the sky.

"Well, this is proving to be pretty challenging," Yumi chuckled.

"Nothing like on Lyoko, That's for sure," Ulrich agreed.

"Well, it's nothing the likes of us can't handle, right?" Odd said, firing down another Hornet.

"It may be tougher if one more shows up, though," Sissi admitted.

"That'll have to be the one that I take care of," Jeremy said.

With that said, they charged out into the battlefield, slashing and blasting at any and all monsters that got in their way. No sooner had they started than they had wiped out the last of the monsters and destroyed the last of the tanks. After a minute, the gang all breathed a sigh of exhaustion.

"I gotta give you guys some credit," Sissi panted. "This whole monster-bashing thing is a lot harder than it looks."

"Uh, don't look now," Ulrich pointed out, "but it looks like it's going to get a lot harder."

They all looked in the direction he was pointing, and saw something that made their stomachs churn over. A dense army was marching towards the city, visible from a distance, and consisted of both the human soldiers of the Cobras, each one dressed in a different army array, as well as the monsters of XANA.

"Kankerlats, Bloks, Krabes, Tarantulas, Creepers, Mantas, it's the whole works of XANA out there!" Yumi gasped.

"Yeah, all that's missing is the sea monsters and the Kolossus," Ulrich added.

"Well, it looks like our work's cut out for us!" Jeremy said, hoisting his sword onto his shoulders. "Now let's make us some Black Cobra stew!"

"Coming up, Einstein!" Odd grinned, and they all charged into the fray, not even attempting to look back.

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**A/N: I still stink at the end lines, but I think this was good. I hope you'll enjoy this to the end, which is fast approaching!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	17. Chapter 16: The 4th Cobra War, Part II

**A/N: And here we are with Chapter 16! Who'd have thought of it? Me, of course(hahaha)! It took me a _LONG_ time to get this on , since my sis is using this for Algebra, and now my dad's cracking down on his no-anime-or-cartoons rap(ugh), and I am working on other fics to bring to you soon! But enough of this, let's get on with the story!**

**By the way, I still don't own Code Lyoko, or else Evolution would be here _now._**

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Chapter 16 – The Fourth Cobra War, Part II

"This isn't right," Noah said as he viewed images of the ensuing battles on all sides of Paris. The images came from the military's satellite cameras. Amber and Maria, both of whom were also watching the battle unfold, turned to face him.

"What do you mean, Noah?" Amber asked. "What isn't right?"

"This is!" he shouted, waving his arms around. "We should be out there helping them! We shouldn't be sitting on our asses in here while those guys may die out there!"

"Hold on, son," Chief Augustus said to him. "You may be able to fight, but they are more prepared to face these new soldiers than any of us here are. We couldn't hope to stand up to these digital enhancements with our normal weapons, but they have not only the experience from their battles on Lyoko, but their skills and powers they had on Lyoko to put a stop to these freaks. Besides, Jeremy said it pretty well: you can't throw away the work Waldo put into you just because you think you need to help. They're soldiers; this is what they were trained to do."

Noah looked at his feet for a moment, and then looked at the commander. "You're right, Chief. Thanks a lot."

Suddenly, an alarm sounded, and red lights were starting to flash everywhere.

"What's going on?" Amber asked, worried.

"Chief!" a soldier shouted. "We've got trouble!"

"What kind of trouble?" Augustus asked.

"The helicopter ambush kind!" the soldier replied, "not to mention some of those weird animal-like robots!"

"What?" the chief shouted, rushing to the command controls. Instantly, a screen showed three of the Black Cobras' helicopters and a swarm of large flying creatures – Jeremy said they were called Mantas – flying towards the headquarters at incredible speeds.

"Ready all available fighting personnel to the roof!" Augustus shouted. "Those Black Cobras must not be permitted to enter this compound at any cost! The lives of thousands, no, millions of people depend on this base's survival!"

"Yes, sir!" the agents chorused, and marched towards the stairway to the roof. After this, Augustus called over one of the agents and turned to the kids.

"We may need you kids to help us out after all," the chief said. "Agent Beklin, fill these kids in on our plan."

"Yes, sir," the agent saluted, and then turned to the kids. "Until my men take down those choppers, you'll have to hide behind the door so you won't get hurt. When I give the signal, you come out from behind the door to subdue those Mantas."

"Okay," Amber said.

"Hold on," Maria said. "I'm coming with you."

Just as Noah and Amber were about to protest, they turned around and saw that Maria was dressed in an unfamiliar uniform. This uniform was almost completely jet black, apart from a few red streaks that ran up and down the arm and leg portions of the uniform. She also had a white metallic breastplate on her black uniform shirt. When Amber and Noah took another look, they noticed a belt around her waist that looked like the ones that Jeremy and the gang wore. The belt buckle, however, had a design on it that looked like a black razor disc with red streaks.

"I got this from Waldo before he left," she explained. "I changed into this a while ago."

"You kids be safe, you hear me?" Chief Augustus said.

"You got it, chief!" Noah said, and the kids marched up behind Agent Beklin, who was leading the agents up the stairs. After four minutes of climbing seven full flights of stairs, the troop reached the door at the top of the building. While Amber, Noah, and Maria stayed behind the door, they could hear the gunfire from the men on the roof, as well as the fire from the choppers and the flying monsters.

"From how it sounds out there," Noah said, "we may have to lend a hand sooner than we think."

About ten kilometers west from headquarters, on the far west side of the city, the Lyoko Warriors and their parents were firing at the monsters and human soldiers that marched towards the city. The Warriors themselves, who were further out in the battlefield, were doing much better at fighting off the monsters, but had a little difficulty fighting the Cobra soldiers. One lunged at Ulrich, but Josef shot the soldier through one of his eyes before the soldier could get a good hit.

"No one lays a hand on my boy when he's saving the world!" Josef shouted.

"Well, this is a welcoming change in you, old friend," Michael Belpois chuckled.

"Oh?"

'Not too long ago, you didn't care about anything but your 'busy, demanding schedule'," he said, making air quotations as he spoke, "but now you're just like how you were when we first became friends: stern but caring."

"Yeah," Josef laughed as well. "I remember that you used that pun with my last name a lot when we were kids."

"That I cannot deny," Michael smiled.

"Enough shooting the breeze, guys!" Tetsuo Ishiyama barked. "We've got some blasting to do!"

"Right!" Michael relayed, and the adult agents resumed firing.

Fortunately for the Lyoko Warriors and the agents, the number of monsters was more than twice the number of human Cobra soldiers, so they wouldn't have to face too many of these unfamiliar enemies. Unfortunately, the number of human Cobra soldiers outnumbered the army of French agents defending the city. Jeremy did not need to be at the other locations of the battle to know that the French agents and the city police were not faring well in handling the human Cobra soldiers.

"It's no good, Lieutenant Belpois!" one agent from shouted as he shot down two soldiers. "They have us outnumbered ten to one!"

"More like twenty!" another agent added as he shot down a Hornet.

"Yeah," a third agent chuckled, "but who's counting?"

"Let it be a hundred!" Michael shouted, shooting through a line of Krabes. "We have the true power! We fight with honor and purpose! We fight for Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood! Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!" "Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité!" the men chorused, and resumed their fire, but rejuvenated by Michael's speech. Though the human enemy soldiers still put up a fight, the defending agents now ripped through the mechanical monsters like tissue paper. "Keep it up, boys," Michael said to himself. "We're going to need all the energy we can get."

Back at the headquarters, the men on the roof were having a bit of a problem defending it. The men in the helicopter were firing high-powered rounds at the men on the ground, but they weren't the best shots in terms of accuracy. Still, it was enough for all the men on the roof to take cover behind anything they could find. Behind the door to the roof, the kids hunkered in a small corner. Amber and Maria put their hands over their ears, but Noah looked outside intently.

"Continue with the attack, men!" he heard Augustus shout. The men came out from their places and fired, but none of them collided with the chopper. To top it all off, the soldiers on the roof were getting shot to pieces by the men in the helicopter, some falling off the roof to the ground two kilometers below.

"That's it!" Maria said. "I can't stand the sight of this anymore! We should help them now!"

"What do you suggest, then?" Noah said. "There are three of us, not counting the brave men out there, and the bad guys have a heavily armed helicopter, plus an unknown number of soldiers with powers beyond human comprehension! Amber has some strong Pokémon, but using them for this doesn't sit right with me. Plus, what chance do you or I have without our virtual powers to help us out?"

"Who said we don't have our powers?" Maria said, smiling.

"We do?"

"Before he left with the others, Mr. Schaeffer told me that he performed something called 'translation' on us which lets us to use our powers onto ourselves in the real world," Maria said. "As long as we are conscious, the changes will not go away. The only way to willingly change back is if we press this button, which resembles the Eye of Lyoko, on our belts."

"What about Amber?" Noah asked. "Sure, her Pokémon can fight well, but what can she herself do?"

She looked at Amber. "Just watch her, Noah. Amber, you go in first. You know what to do."

Amber nodded and rushed outside, throwing her Poké Balls into the air. "Let's go guys!" she called out. Within seconds, the Seed Pokémon, Flame Pokémon, and Tiny Turtle Pokémon appeared on the scene. This was enough to make the pilots of the enemy helicopter hold their fire in confusion.

"What the hell is going on down there?" the pilot called.

"Some little kid and these weird animals came out form the door to the roof, sir!" one of the soldiers called to the cockpit. "Another one's coming out now!"

"What?" the pilot said, wheeling his head around to see what was really happening. Sure enough when he saw Amber, Noah, and Maria on the ground, he snickered for a minute, but then his laughter died away as he roared in anger. "How dare you insult me, you French maggots! Is this your idea of a joke? Am I a play ground bully, since you send little children into a battle?"

"I tell you the truth," Amber started.

"Unless you change and become like the little children," Noah added.

"You will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Maria finished.

"Matthew 18:3," Augustus said to himself.

"Kingdom of Heaven! Ha!" the pilot spat, scowling. "Your speech about God does not intimidate me, you vermin. God does not care about ignorant children or about these French Catholic slime. We are God's chosen followers! We, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan! And I, Samuel Charleston, will fuel this dream as the leader of this brotherhood of true Americans!"

"So, it's everyone's favorite cult of self-righteous American religious zealots, eh?" Noah chuckled. "Interesting choice, makes sense working with Neo-Nazis, but Communists and the Muslim Brotherhood? Isn't this kinda out of your line?"

"They hate the Catholics just as much as we do, and as the saying goes, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', so we're all… partners in the Cobras," Samuel replied. "They help us, and we get our goals fulfilled for a better America."

"You think your goals are ones to make a better country?" Maria said. "Your ideas are built on Anti-Semitism, Neo-Confederacy, nativism, Anti-Catholicism, Neo-Nazism, white supremacy and blatant terrorism! You're against the ideas your founders fought against incredible forces to uphold!"

"What does that mean to you?" Samuel barked. "Neither one of you are one of us Americans, so what do you care?"

"Those kids may not have been born Americans like you," Maria said, "but I was. And I know what our country was truly founded upon: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Your idea is one of death, slavery, and the abolishment of freedom and religion for all but you. For that reason we will cut you down with all of our might!" Amber and Maria put up their arms in fists and Noah unlocked his Duel Disk.

"Don't make me laugh!" Samuel roared. "Men, fire at will!"

"Not so fast!" Amber cried. "Flamethrower!" To everyone's surprise, the stream of flame did not come from Charizard's mouth, but came from Amber's mouth. The bullets flew fast, but they were completely obliterated by the powerful Fire-Type attack. The fire attack also stunned the men and scorched a good part of the helicopter, and Amber took advantage of the situation. She used Flamethrower again, but this time she aimed for the back propeller. Once the flame made contact with the metal, a small explosion ripped not only the back propeller, but also blew the copter's entire tail completely off. Samuel scowled, but shook it off.

"We need to land this thing, sir!" one of the pilots said. "Right now!"

"You won't get the chance!" Noah said, throwing a card onto his Duel Disk. "Now, Blue-Eyes White Dragon! Wipe out these evil men with your mighty Burst Stream of Destruction!"

A white stream of energy from the towering dragon blasted the helicopter to bits, and the men who were inside jumped out and fell to the ground, some dying on impact while others used parachuted down. They gave off a little lightning, but they died down after a while as they stumbled away.

"Should we pursue, sir?" one of the men asked Augustus.

"Negative, soldier," Augustus shook his head. "They won't be much of a threat without their weapons or their powers."

"Still, they shouldn't be totally ignored," Maria said. She then took out something that looked like a gun out of a science fiction movie and pulled the trigger. Nothing physically came from the barrel, but the men on the ground stopped running and collapsed on the spot.

"That was an EMP gun," Maria said. "It's like a tazer, but much more effective over long distance, and will knock out much more people and tech than a normal tazer. It's controlled as well, so it won't hurt us or anything we use unless I aim it at whatever I'm shooting at."

"Cool," Amber said.

"It doesn't look like there are any more copters heading this way for now," Augustus said, "so we can recuperate inside. Let's just hope that Waldo, Jeremy and the others are having better luck at this than we were."

"We are not having good luck at this!" Odd shouted as he fired a laser arrow at a human Cobra soldier. The attack stunned him, but did not completely stop him until Odd fired two more shots into his chest. Even then, the soldier slowly lurched closer before he slumped forward. "There's just too many of the Cobras!"

"Then let's make more of us!" Ulrich replied, making a ninja hand sign with two fingers that were sticking out of a fist. "Triplicate!" In an instant, there were three Ulrichs charging at the enemy line. They struck down four human soldiers with ease, but everyone in close distance could tell that no one, not even Ulrich, could keep it up for long. Ulrich wore that very thought on his face as he jumped back to where the others were.

"It's no good, guys," he said, panting heavily. "These human soldiers are a lot tougher than the monsters, that's for sure. Even if they are like the monsters with their virtual enhancements."

"Man, I wish we had something like in the video games where you could zap their radars or something." Odd whined.

Suddenly, Sissi snapped her fingers. "That's it! For once, Odd Della Robia, you've struck gold!"

Odd looked at her quizzically. "I did? What with?"

"With one of the only things you rock at: video games!" she replied, and then turned to Jeremy. "Jeremy, do we have any weapon that spreads chaff?"

"Chaff?" Jeremy raised an eyebrow, then reached into a pocket on his jacket and brought out some small oval-shaped objects. "Yeah, I've got some Chaff grenades, but how will those help against humans?"

"Against ordinary humans, they're useless," Sissi said, taking one of the grenades, "but against these Cobras, it may be what we need!" To visually explain what she was talking about, Sissi removed the pin from the grenade and lobbed it at a mass of human Cobra soldiers. Within seconds, the bomb went off in mid-air, and small strips of aluminum foil scattered around the army. The soldiers stopped moving and waved their hands around, trying to see in front of them, but there were too many of the metallic strips. Once that was done, Sissi picked up a stray AK-47 and fired it at the army. Several went down within the first few seconds of her fire. Once she stopped, she turned to the others, who were grinning widely.

"Sissi," Ulrich said, "I never thought I'd say this, but you're a genius."

"Don't thank me," she raised a finger. "Odd was my inspiration."

"I was?" Odd said. "I mean, uh, of course I was!"

"An inspiration in deed," a voice rang out, deep and with a heavy Russian accent. The Lyoko Warriors jumped to their feet. Though the gang, apart from Jeremy, only heard the voice once, they knew it well enough to know who had spoken.

"Danzkhi!" Jeremy growled. "Where are you? Show yourself!"

"But of course, Captain Belpois," the voice came again.

Soon after that, a helicopter with two propellers on top of it descended from the cloudy skies and landed in an open space in the field of battle. Twelve guards, all of them armed to the teeth, marched out and saluted to a thirteenth person emerging from the helicopter. Like the other soldiers, he was dressed in a green Russian army uniform, but his had red stripes running up the sleeves, and was decorated with several ornate badges and medals. His dark hair, fuchsia eyes, and newly grown beard showed off his hard, cold expression look even more so than his image on the screen at the Cobra's former headquarters.

"It's so nice to meet all of you in person," he said after a while, "but now you will all die."

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**A/N: Here's another cliffhanger, just to keep you on your toes! The final fight with Danzkhi awaits, and I'm working on it as I type this, so prepare yourselves to be blown away!**

**UPDATE-10/3/12: By the way, if some parts seem a little 'religiously centered', I'm stating facts while the story reflects my views as a Catholic. So suck it up.**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	18. Chapter 17: The 4th Cobra War, Part III

**A/N: Here we are, finally! It gets a lot darker here, and an old 'friend' returns, so enjoy!**

**By the way, I don't own Code Lyoko.**

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Chapter 17: The Fourth Cobra War, Part III

For a long time, neither side moved an inch, or barely moved a muscle. Each side knew that one could attack before the other had time to react, so for now the gang just stared at Danzkhi and he stared back at them, but soon started walking towards them.

"You kids are quite a formidable force," he said. "I never thought ones such as you would be able to take down XANA, discover our organization, and then take out several of our key members. It's too bad, though, now that your adventures are about to come to an ugly end."

"Just try it, Red Russian scum," Jeremy hissed, and Danzkhi grinned.

"Atakovat!" he barked in Russian, and he and his guards charged forward.

"Charge!" Jeremy cried, and the gang rushed forward to meet the enemy.

The enemy guards fired multiple rounds from their huge guns, but the gang had activated their deflector shields, so they weren't hurt, but they still felt the force from the impacts, and it weighed on their retaliation time. It took Odd a full ten seconds to fire a single laser arrow after being shot at five times each second by two of the twelve guards. Even Ulrich, the fastest of the group, was slowed by the drag from feeling the bullets striking his shield. After what seemed like a short time, when it was actually seventeen minutes, Jeremy shouted out:

"Fall back! Retire and regroup!"

Jeremy pulled a smoke grenade from his jacket and threw it in the direction of the Cobras, landing just meters away from them. Upon landing, twin jets of smoke emitted from both sides of the small cylinder, giving Jeremy the chance to get the gang to gather around him. He ushered them into an alley, behind a line of office buildings, and when they all stopped running, the gang slumped to the ground, exhausted.

"He's a lot tougher than he looks," Ulrich panted.

"And he looked tough to start with," Yumi added.

"No joke," Odd said.

"Well, we can't just give up!" Aelita said. "That guy's responsible for the death of countless people, and if we don't stop him now he'll only keep killing!"

"Well, what do you suggest we do, Mrs. Einstein?" Sissi asked, irate.

"I'm saying it's time we brought out the big guns," she replied.

"You mean…" William started.

"Yes, I do," the pink-haired girl nodded. "We have to use our Scipio powers."

"I hate doing that," Jeremy said. "I don't want to give this ghost of XANA anymore control over me than I already have. It may soon become permanent."

Suddenly, a light voice rang out inside Jeremy's head. "Oh, please. As if I would want to keep control of your mind, Jeremy Belpois. As if you haven't done enough to me already."

"What?" Jeremy whipped his head around. "Who said that?"

"Who said what, Einstein?" Odd asked.

"I heard someone say, 'As if you haven't done enough to me already'," the blond-haired captain replied.

"I didn't hear anyone," Ulrich said.

"I didn't either," Yumi added.

"I…think I did," William said.

"I think so too," Aelita added.

"Well, who is it?" Sissi asked.

"I don't know," Aelita answered.

"Oh, really?" the voice came again, this time for all to hear, and everyone jumped.

"I heard that!" Yumi said.

"Me too!" Odd joined in.

"Who is that?" Ulrich said, jumping to his feet and drawing his katana sabers.

"I'm surprised that you children didn't figure it out by now," the voice came again. "Then again, none of you are close to having the mental capacity of Jeremy here. Not that I'm praising him or anything."

"What do you mean?" Odd asked.

"Wait a minute…" William said before his expression blanked. "No way…"

"What?" Sissi looked at him worriedly. "What is it?"

"It can't be…" Aelita added.

"What can't be?" Yumi asked. "What are you guys so worked up about?"

"Take a look at Jeremy," Aelita gasped.

When the gang turned around to do so, they instantly noticed something Jeremy had that wasn't there before: his left eye was different from the other one. It was still the same size and it had no alternate color, but the iris had grown an interesting new feature: one spoke on the top of the iris and three spokes on the bottom of the iris. Jeremy then spoke, but the voice was not his.

"It's good to see you all again."

"XANA," William growled.

"I'm honored that you still remember me, William Dunbar," the voice of the malevolent AI said through Jeremy.

"How could I forget?" William said, curtly. "You're the one who's responsible for the worst six months of my life!"

"Depends on how you see it," XANA shrugged. "By the way, I think your little girlfriend over there in the black is too dense for you." Sissi looked shocked by this, and William narrowed his eyes.

"I don't give a damn what you think, you digital demon," he hissed, standing between Jeremy and Sissi. "Frankly, I'm surprised how you can even understand what is happening between us."

"I really can't," XANA admitted, with a hint of regret in his voice, "but I can emulate small levels of it fairly well, if I do say so myself. The fact that my speech pattern resembles yours is proof enough of that, don't you think?"

Just then, Jeremy's right eye narrowed and turned to the other one. "Shut up," Jeremy said. "I'm in control of you, so don't even try to say anything funny, _capisce_?"

"Fine," XANA said. "As the humans say it, 'you're the boss'."

"How are you even here?" Ulrich asked. "That multi-agent program that Jeremy made should have deleted you and your template along with you."

"Please," XANA smirked. "My template was deleted the second I was brought online. As for how I am here, you know that a portion of my code rests inside each of the Scipios, as you call them, but only a certain piece. I installed half of my code into Jeremy from when he reactivated the supercomputer 3.5 years ago to give him the virus I used to sap his strength. As a back-up plan, I infused the other half of my code into Jeremy's energy that I stole from him due to the numerous times that he used the Return to the Past program. Once the two halves were joined inside Jeremy, I was re-created inside of him."

"So…you're, like, part of Jeremy now?" Odd asked.

"And here I thought you had gained at least a little intelligence in my absence," XANA chuckled. "But yes, I am indeed bonded with Jeremy. You don't have to worry about me taking him over, though. I lost that power during our virtual-genetic compilation. That should take some worry off of your mind, won't it, little sister?" XANA grinned at Aelita.

"You're truly despicable," Aelita growled.

"I get that a lot," XANA chuckled.

"I'm surprised that he knows about how to do all of this emotional stuff," Sissi said, still reeling from what was happening. "Aren't you, like, a computer program or something?"

"My point is proven, William," XANA said. "As for you, Ms. Delmas, I can emulate several human emotions and I have a moderate understanding of them. However, I cannot grasp these illogical concepts which you humans call compassion, friendship, and love. Before you say anything in response to that, yes, that is like it is in the motion pictures and television programs. However, as I am physically bonded to this boy, my strength is limited to his. Not to mention he has a disdain for my speaking through him. So for now, I bid you all farewell." Jeremy stumbled for a second before he righted himself. When they looked at him, the eye of XANA was gone from his left eye.

"Well, now that that's over with," Ulrich said, "the question is what do we do now?"

"Simple," Jeremy said. "We go back out there and fight Danzkhi, and before he dies, he'll tell us where Kirk Fromm is. Once we find him, we fight him and we kill him. Are we all ready for this?" Jeremy held out his hand, and the others piled their hands on top. After a second, they thrust their held hands down.

"Let's do this!" they cheered.

Jeremy poked his head out from behind one of the buildings, and saw two of the Cobra guards that Danzkhi brought patrolling the area, looking for the gang. They marched straight in one direction, stopped and looked around, and marched in the opposite direction before repeating the cycle. Jeremy looked back to the gang.

"Two coming this way," Jeremy started. "Silencer on."

Jeremy clicked a long cylinder onto the barrel of his gun and motioned for the gang to line up behind him. He poked out from one building when both guards were facing away from them, and fired two shots; each one pierced the heads of both men. No sooner had the gang heard the shots than both men slumped to the ground, dead. Jeremy motioned for the guys to stay behind, ran up to the bodies, and searched for what they had. After a minute of searching, he looked around and signaled the gang that the coast was clear and to follow him.

"I can tell from these men's digital readings that their comrades are close by," Jeremy said, motioning to his gauntlet. "As for Danzkhi, he's still in the same place when we left him."

"That makes it all the easier, right?" Sissi asked.

"More like too easy," Ulrich said. "He must be trying to lure us into a trap."

"But he didn't count on what we'll do about it," Jeremy said. "We take out the guards looking for us, and then we take out Danzkhi himself."

"So where are the rest of the guards?" Yumi asked.

"Three of them are about five kilos to the east, four are three kilos to the west, and three are still with Danzkhi," Jeremy replied. "Yumi, you and Ulrich, Odd, and Sissi will take the ones at the west. Aelita, William, and I will head east. We'll regroup at the place we started from when we complete our missions. We must make sure to take Danzkhi alive for now. We need him alive if we're going to find out where Kirk Fromm is."

"Right," the gang nodded, and headed off. They found the Quadpod, which was close by, and rode them in the direction Jeremy had told them.

After about six minutes of riding and looking, Yumi and her troop found the four Cobra guards, who were sweeping the inside of a parking garage. They parked the vehicle away from the building and Ulrich motioned for the three to follow him into the vacant lot. Their stealth technology, along with their training on Lyoko (except in Sissi's case), enabled them to slink up behind the soldiers without them even remotely being aware of them. Sissi tapped one of the men's shoulders, and as he looked around, his face came in close contact with Sissi's fists.

"Hope it broke your teeth," she smiled.

Once the other three realized what happened, Yumi's fans and Ulrich's swords sliced their guns, Sissi punched them back, and Odd's laser arrows impaled the men's chests. However, just as they thought they were done, half a dozen Kankerlats and three Tarantulas appeared from the upper floors. They reacted swiftly, countering the enemy fire and returning with more than sufficient force. Within seconds, the enemy was eliminated.

"Let's get back to the alley and meet up with the others," Ulrich said, sheathing his swords.

The others nodded, and they all dashed out of the building to the Quadpod, and rode off to the outskirts of the city. They saw the Overwing, Overbike, and Jeremy's motorcycle at the site, and their riders along with them, who signaled the four Quadpod riders when they arrived.

"Are you guys alright?" Aelita asked.

"Nothing broken," Ulrich said.

"We ran into some trouble, though," Yumi added.

"Let me take a guess," William said, "monster trouble?"

"How'd you know?" Odd asked.

"We ran into a horde of Krabes and Volcanoids too," Jeremy said. "They appeared the second we took down the human soldiers. We took them out quickly, but they still took us by surprise."

"Well, soon Danzkhi will be taken by surprise, won't he?" William said.

"Yeah," Ulrich nodded.

"Now let's finish this," Aelita said.

"Status report," Danzkhi said to one of his men on his com link.

"We have secured the area," the soldier on the other side of the line replied, "and we still have no sign of…wait a minute, sir. I see…one of our men is down! Sir! It's them! They're-" Suddenly, the feed was instantly cut off.

"They're what?" Danzkhi said loudly. "What the hell just happened? Respond!"

Suddenly, both his men dropped to the ground, and Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, William, Sissi, Aelita, and Jeremy jumped out from nowhere and charged at the man.

"Don't toy with me!" he shouted, and snapped his fingers.

Within seconds, a swarm of monsters invaded the area. However, they were no match for the seven Lyoko Warriors, and were obliterated in no time. Unfortunately for them, Danzkhi took the opportunity of the momentary distraction to charge up his powers and fire a huge lightning bolt at the gang.

"Take this!"

The bolt struck dead-on, and he let out a shout. But he was quickly silenced when the cloud of smoke that appeared instantly vanished, revealing the Lyoko Warriors as he had seen them last, but also two large figures whom he had failed to recognize. One was tall with dark hair, a long black cape, and a white staff shining with white light, and the other was small and slender, with long pink hair, a white cloak, and pinkish white angel wings.

"Hello, Geraldo Danzkhi," said Waldo Schaeffer.

"And now we must say goodbye," Anthea Schaeffer finished.

Both nodded at Jeremy, William, and Aelita, who nodded back.

"Commencing upload, Scipio 02 – Power limitation at 90 percent confirmed!"

"Commencing upload, Scipio 03 – Power limitation at 90 percent confirmed!"

"Commencing upload, Scipio 04 – Power limitation at 90 percent confirmed!"

The changes were almost instant. Jeremy's eyes were stained blood red, William's teeth elongated into vampire-like fangs, and Aelita's wings became more solid and her hair grew longer. Their special weapons materialized almost as quickly as their appearances changed.

"So these are the mighty five Scipios," Danzkhi said, grinning wildly as his body coursed with purple electricity. "And number two, the only one with Scipio 00 himself forever inside him! This should be fun!"

With that, he charged forward, and the five transformed warriors retaliated. The battle was truly a sight that no one who saw it would soon forget. Lightning flashed in ways thought to be impossible even with the given scenario. Metal clashed against metal and enormous sparks flew from their weapons and lit up the sunset sky like fireworks. The intense struggle went on for what seemed to be forever, neither side willing to give up and none of the other Lyoko Warriors daring to step foot into the brawl.

Suddenly, Danzkhi caused a howling gale that swept William and Jeremy off their feet and back several meters. Aelita flew high into the sky to avoid this tactic. But, just as she did and prepared to counterattack, she saw Danzkhi's eyes glow brightly as he grinned widely. He raised both of his hands, and shot two bolts of lightning into the clouds, which caused numerous flashes to be seen from the clouds and thunderclaps to be heard. Aelita soon realized what this meant, and threw up a large plasma shield over the area where she, Jeremy, William, and the Lyoko Warriors were. As the last flash came, a bolt beyond any seen before shot from the clouds and struck the shield with devastating force. The barrier shattered into millions of pieces, each one hitting a monster that was on the ground and the newly activated shields of the Lyoko Warriors.

Everyone looked up, and saw something falling at high speeds to the ground below. Upon closer inspection, they saw that it was a person. Only later did the Lyoko Warriors realize with horror that the free falling figure was Aelita. One of her wings had been shot off, and she hit the ground hard.

"AELITAAAA!"

The Lyoko Warriors and the two elder Scipios all rushed to her side without a second's waste. By the time they reached her, they saw that Aelita had not fallen out of her Scipio form. Waldo cradled her head in his arms, and Anthea held her hand woefully. Jeremy, who merely watched as she fell from the sky, stood still for a long time. In an instant, he whipped his head around to face Danzkhi, his entire form sparking with lightning fiercer than before.

"DAMN YOU!" he howled in a loud, warped voice. Suddenly, enormous electric blue wings sprouted from Jeremy's back, and he drew a second scythe in his left hand, identical to the one he had in his right hand.

Danzkhi gasped. He had heard something from Kirk Fromm about Jeremy containing a hidden power that none of the other Scipios had, but he never thought it would be something like this. As he looked at the creature that the young man had become, he could swear that he saw another face in Jeremy's face. The face was that of a young man with long peppered gray hair. His hair style and facial features were similar to Jeremy's, but his eyes were a deep red with one line on the top of each iris and three lines on the bottom of each iris.

"It's just like Herr Fromm said…" he said, shaken. "You are…the one who gave us our new powers! Not only are you Jeremiah Marquis Belpois…

…you are XANA!"

* * *

**A/N: What WHAAAT! I'm working on Chapter 18 right now, so please be patient! Until then...**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	19. Chapter 18: The 4th Cobra War, Part IV

**A/N: I left that last one on a cliffhanger, I admit. But here we are, a week later, with Chapter 18! As a side note, I also take into account that the large portion of the French population is Catholic, so there's another reason for my plot devices.**

**Also, I STILL don't own Code anything but my computer. And that was my mother's!**

* * *

Chapter 18 – The Fourth Cobra War, Part IV

While Jeremy clashed violently with Danzkhi, Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, Sissi, William, and Waldo looked worriedly at the unconscious and scorched body of Aelita as Anthea waved her glowing hands over her daughter. She held them over one place, and then went to another, and soon she stopped and her hands stopped glowing. She lowered her head and sighed deeply. As he saw this, Waldo's eyes widened and tears began to form in them.

"Is it…bad?" he asked, scared of what she would say.

"Yes and no," his wife replied. "The damage is not physically mortal, but the damage to her virtual code is severe. If it is not repaired, she will never be the same. Her health will worsen, her mind will degrade, and God only knows what will happen then."

"What will it take to cure her?" Sissi asked.

"At this point," Anthea said, "it will take a miracle."

The Lyoko Warriors looked at the ground, their minds heavy with the weight of this news. But Sissi, desperately grasping her head as if to force an answer out, walked in circles around the area. Just then, she stopped short as if something had suddenly popped up in front of her.

"The data packs," she said to herself. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. "I think I have an idea."

"Let's hear it," Ulrich said, and they all gathered around.

"Do you remember how Jeremy said that the military scientists could never find a use for those packs of data that they extracted from the Cobra soldiers?" she asked.

"Yeah…" Yumi said, unsure of where Sissi was going.

"Well, if what she needs is to repair her code," Sissi replied, "and the data is a part of XANA's code, why not use those packs to repair her virtual structure code?"

They all looked at Sissi with expressions of shock and surprise, and Sissi thought that they hated what she said. However, one of the Warriors put her negative thoughts to rest.

"Sissi, that's genius!" Ulrich said.

"It is?" she asked, looking more shocked than the others were. "You really mean it?"

"If I didn't," he said, grinning, "I would never want to do this!" Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, especially Sissi, he grabbed her shoulders and hugged her tightly.

"Now, was this so hard?" she said, slightly giggling.

"Don't push your luck, girlie," Ulrich said, and pulled them apart.

"Sorry," she said, rubbing the back of her neck.

"I'll take care of this," Waldo said, dialing up a number on his wrist communicator. Within seconds, an image popped up on the screen.

"Waldo?" the voice of General Augustus said.

"General, I need you to gather all of the data drives from the Cobras at once," Waldo said.

"Affirmative," he said, "but may I ask what they're for?"

"To save my daughter's life!" Waldo yelled. "Now get someone, I don't care who, and bring them here as fast as you can!"

"At once, Lieutenant Schaeffer," Augustus quickly replied before he hung up.

"Whew,' Augustus sighed as he looked up at the screen. "One of these days, he's got to learn to control that temper of his." He looked around and saw the agents helping to repair what portions of the base that the Cobras had damaged in their attack. The kids were helping out as well; Amber's Pokémon towed materials and fused metal, Noah used his monsters to help with the reconstruction, and Maria attended to the wounded. Just then the general had an idea.

"Kids!" he called to the three children, who stopped what they were doing and rushed up to the general.

"Yes, General?" Maria said.

"I need you three to do a job for me," Augustus said, and motioned to the monitor, which showed an image of a vault in the compound. "Waldo has instructed me to get all of the data packs that are in this vault and deliver them to him at once. I need to stay here and command the base, so I'm sending you on this mission."

"But what about everyone here?" Noah asked. "What if there's another attack?"

"Waldo has informed me that all of the remaining major Cobra forces are at his location," the general replied, "and that the Gendarme Nationalé is currently repelling any and all other forces attacking the city. I want to send you since you're the best soldiers we have."

"I think the general has a point," Amber said. "We can make it easier than other people can, and they've got things under control here. I can fly there on Charizard and you, Noah, can use your Duel Monsters to repel enemy attacks."

"Alright," Noah said. "So where's the data vault?"

"Follow me," Augustus said, and led the kids to the elevator.

The vault was located in the basement of the compound, which was more than a kilometer beneath the earth's surface. A row of lights lined up the hall to the vault, and there were security cameras with small rifles mounted on them at every corner and wall of the hall. Augusts led the kids down the hallway until they came to the large iron door at the end of the hall. The door was covered with several locks and switches. He placed his hand on one, another scanned his eyes, and punched a series of numbers into a keypad. Finally, a microphone came up, and he cleared his throat.

"Augustus, Harold," he said loudly and clearly.

Instantly, the door made several different beeping noises, hissed out air held from the inside, and swung open. The kids followed the general into the vault and saw the space was lined with small thumb-sized devices that glowed brightly with a dark shade of red. Each one was marked with two insignias: the stamp of the French Federal Government, and the Eye of XANA.

"There must be hundreds of these drives in here!" Amber gasped as she took in the number of the drives. "How will we get them all out of here and to Mr. Schaeffer?"

"That's where this comes in," Augustus answered, pressing a button on the wall. A small metallic table rose up from the floor with an equally small case resting on top of it. Augustus put his thumb on a black mark on the case, and it clicked and hissed open. Inside the case was a silver device, about 16 centimeters long, 16 centimeters tall and 4 centimeters wide. Stamped on the front of it was the Eye of XANA in the Great Seal of France.

"This is a blank hard drive," the general said, "which can contain up to ten terabytes of raw data. This is where all of the data from the agents came from. We have never used this before, and no one but Jeremy, Michael, Waldo, and I know of it. I believe that this can be used to repair Aelita's virtual code."

With that, General Augustus pushed a button on the hard drive, and the thumb drives in the vault glowed brighter than before for a minute before fading out altogether. The hard drive, in turn, glowed bright red as it took in the data. After a while, the glow surrounding it faded as well. The Eye of XANA, however, was dyed red. Harold then closed the case and handed it to Noah.

"Keep it safe," he said. "That device now has power equivalent to that of an EMP bomb. If it is disturbed, it can permanently knock out every mechanical device in France. You're Aelita's only hope of survival. Don't let her down."

"No, sir!" the kids all saluted, and rushed down the hall to the elevator.

"I'm telling you," Anthea said, "Aelita will be fine. It will take Harold a while to get everything together and get someone who's still standing to get the original hard drive here."

"I know," Waldo snapped. "It's just that every second that ticks by is like another second that may harm Aelita's virtual genetic code. I just hope whoever Harold sent will get here soon."

"Uh, Waldo?" Yumi said, pointing up at the sky. "Be careful what you wish for."

"What do you-?" Waldo started. He looked in the direction she pointed, but then he realized what she meant.

Coming towards the area at very high speeds was a huge boat with a tall flat monolith, suspended to the boat by cables, with strange drawings written all over it. What was even more surprising was that the boat had figures atop it, shooting at the various Lyoko monsters and airborne Cobra agents that swarmed around it. Waldo took one closer look at the boat before he gasped in shock.

"It's the kids!" he shouted. Wondering why they were in the battle, he flew over to the boat. Upon landing, he saw that Amber's Pokémon were using their elemental attacks, while she oddly was able to mimic them herself by shooting fire and water from her mouth, and green light from her hands. Noah was using his Duel Disk to bring his monsters to the battlefield, using his virtual powers to make them solid and fight. Maria used various ammunitions to repel any attackers that got through Amber and Noah's barrage. Upon noticing Waldo, they stopped and looked at him.

"I thought I told you to stay at the base!" he said.

"They've got things well under control," Amber said. "General Augustus himself suggested we come to you."

"Like it or not, you need us here," Noah added. "We have the data, after all." Noah showed Waldo the steel briefcase that Harold gave them, and he stared in wonder. After a while, he smiled.

"I guess you win this one," he chuckled. "Get this ship down to the ground. You kids have some work to do."

Noah nodded, and turned a large wheel on the boat. The ship lurched downward as it landed softly near the site where Danzkhi's copter landed. As Waldo and the kids got off, Noah took a card out of his Duel Disk, and the ship vanished. He then opened the briefcase and gently took out the hard disk.

"So how do we work this thing?" Yumi asked.

"Allow me," Anthea said, holding her hand out to Noah. He handed the drive over to her, and she turned to Waldo. "Your staff, please, dear?"

"Okay," he said, unsure of where she was going. As she acquired the mechanical wizard-like staff, she attached the drive to the tip of the staff. As she did, small cables came out of the tip of the staff and connected to the drive, which began to glow a bright shade of red.

"Watch this," she said. She moved over to Aelita, and touched the tip of the staff to Aelita's forehead. Instantly, the staff and Aelita began to glow a brilliant white. After a few seconds, Aelita's left wing, the one that had been blasted off by Danzkhi, grew out of nowhere and the glow brightened for several seconds before it faded. The drive, too, became dark as it once was, and the Eye of XANA vanished from it. After a few agonizing seconds, Aelita's eyes flew open, and she sat up, weary but conscious.

"What…what happened?" she said, still weary from the events that occurred.

"You're all right," Waldo said, wrapping his arms around his daughter. "_Deo Gratias._"

"Yeah, I am," she said, "but what exactly happened? I remember a blast and then nothing."

"You got blasted by Danzkhi," William said, "but you're fine now. The kids and your mother saved you."

"Really?" she said, looking at Anthea, who nodded. "How?"

"I used the data from the Cobras," she replied. "That's what they were for, after all. The codes came from XANA, so they could repair themselves if they needed to."

"Wait," she said, looking around. "Where's Jeremy? I thought he'd be here."

"He is," Ulrich said.

"Actually, he's over there," Odd added, pointing to the south.

Aelita looked in that direction, and saw Jeremy's violent clash with Danzkhi was reaching a climax. Danzkhi had pulled out a large sickle and an axe that was shaped to look like a hammer, and was defending the barrage from Jeremy's scythe with surprising skill. However, one blocked slash sent enough momentum to force Danzkhi back several feet.

_To think his powers are this great,_ he thought to himself, _especially when taken into account that he is in unity with XANA. It's just like what Kirk Fromm said. He is human, yet he has powers beyond human comprehension._

Lightning flashed and struck multiple times around Jeremy. As his anger grew, the bolts grew fiercer and struck faster. He was breathing heavily, not panting but growling and hissing through his teeth. He gripped his massive blade tighter, and charged at Danzkhi, yelling in fury.

Suddenly, before he could make a strike, a wall of plasma energy shot up between the two adversaries. Jeremy jumped back to avoid smashing head first into the wall. Danzkhi staggered back as well, just as confounded as Jeremy was by the sudden appearance of this wall. They both turned around, and saw Aelita with her arms raised and her sword drawn.

"That's quite enough, Jeremy," she said. "I'll deal with this red menace."

Jeremy looked surprised, then relieved, and then nodded and stepped aside as Aelita caused the wall to dissipate, and she advanced on Danzkhi. As she came closer, he cursed and threw more lightning bolts at her, but they helplessly exploded several meters away from her. He became more panicked as she drew ever closer and his rapidly fading energy made the bolts dwindle down to mere sparks before she reached out and grabbed him by his throat.

"The time has come," she said. "Prepare for justice."

Instantly, her eyes glowed a bright yet dark shade of red, and Danzkhi's eyes began glowing red as well. Soon, the red glow covered Danzkhi's entire body. The glow lasted for several minutes before it faded from the both of them. Aelita closed her eyes and dropped Danzkhi to the ground. Danzkhi faintly tried to grasp out at Aelita, but then his hand dropped, and he fell backwards.

"I… have been… judged," he said faintly. "The angel… of death… has taken… my… soul…" He gasped for air, and his head dropped back to the ground, his eyes rolling back, moving no more.

"Aelita…?" Jeremy began, as he fell out of his transformation.

"I'm fine, Jeremy," she said, reverting to her normal virtual avatar as well.

"And Danzkhi…" he started.

Aelita nodded. "He is dead. His soul clung to his powers and refused to relinquish them, so I took it as well." She then scoffed. "A lot of good those powers will do him in Hell."

"I'm just glad you're all right," Jeremy said, pulling Aelita into a tight hug. "Don't ever scare me like that again, you understand me?"

"I won't," she said, returning the embrace. "I promise you." After the two separated, which wasn't until a few minutes had passed, Yumi and the others crept up to Danzkhi's lifeless body.

"So…" Sissi started, "is he… really dead?"

"Yes," Aelita nodded. "He is."

"So what's next?" William asked.

"We go for Fromm," Jeremy said. "We've wiped out the pawns, and we've taken the queen, now we take the king. It's a simple matter of chess."

"I hope so," Yumi said.

"We'll head back to the base," Maria said. "General Augustus may need us there, plus our work is done here. You can handle things from now on."

"That we will," Waldo said. "Thank you for everything."

"Thank you, Waldo Schaeffer," Noah said. "If it was not for you, we'd all be dead, along with Aelita, and the world would be engulfed in chaos."

With that, Amber called out Charizard and flew off on it, Noah summoned Shinato and flew off on it, and Maria put her helmet on and zoomed down the now-silent streets at sonic speed.

"Those kids," Waldo said, chuckling. "They remind me of myself when I was a boy."

"Enough old man moments, honey," Anthea said. "We've got to go after Kirk Fromm before he triggers World War III."

"She's right," Jeremy said. "But the question is; where is he?"

"He's in the sky over the Élysée Palace," Aelita gasped.

"How do you know?" Jeremy asked.

"When I took his powers into myself," Aelita replied, "I could see his memories. I saw Kirk get into a dragon-headed airship and fly off to the Élysée Palace."

"A dragon-headed warship?" Odd said.

"Enough about the details!" Jeremy shouted. "We need to get downtown and stop Fromm before it's too late!"

"Right!" they all chorused, and ran off to downtown Paris where the houses of government would soon be under siege. Realizing this, Jeremy tapped his communicator, which dialed the president's private line.

"President Keller," he said loudly enough so that he could be heard over the din of battle.

"What's you status, Captain Belpois?" the voice of the French President asked.

"Danzkhi is dead," Jeremy began, "and now we're off to face Fromm."

"If that's good news," Keller said, "then why do you sound so agitated?"

"It's because he's heading your way!" Jeremy yelled back. "All this time he was flying in an airship 10 kilometers above Paris, high above the clouds, ready to strike against France whenever he wanted! You have to get yourself and the other members of the cabinet to safety at once! I cannot guarantee your safety if Kirk Fromm reaches you before I do!"

"Understood, Captain Belpois," Keller said. "I will inform the cabinet. Bring this man to justice by any means necessary. Take him down… or take him out."

"By your command, _Monsieur le Président_," Jeremy said, hanging up.

"Prepare yourself, Kirk Fromm," Jeremy said to himself.

"The day of justice is nigh."

* * *

**A/N: And here we go again! This time, the last battle is upon us! It will be two chpaters long, and then the epilogue will wrap it up.**

**I... I just can't believe it. After nearly four years, my story is almost finally done.**

**I want to thank everyone who supported me all the way, escpecially Cyber Angel Rowan and DarkMousyRulezAll. To all of my watchers from '08 and now, here's looking at you! Stay gold!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	20. Chapter 19: The 4th Cobra War, Part V

**A/N: Rowan sent me a message a few days ago about my AN last chapter. It's good to know some people actually pay attention to me!**

**Anyway... here's the newest installment of the final battle!**

**P.S. I don't own Code Lyoko, or else we'd be reading the comics in English.**

* * *

Chapter 19 – The Fourth Cobra War, Part V

"What do you mean, 'Kirk Fromm is here,' Mr. President?" Prime Minister François Lux asked President Keller.

The members of the French Presidential cabinet had jumped to their feet in shock when the Jeremy's message of Kirk Fromm's impending attack on the Élysée Palace blared over the private line for all of the members to hear. The justices and the legislators looked panicked, but the president's demeanor was trying to calm them all down.

"I meant what I said, Mr. Prime Minister," Keller replied calmly. "Captain Jeremy contacted me saying that the intel they extracted from Danzkhi before he died showed that Kirk was flying in an airship 10 kilos over our heads, preparing to dive bomb into this building. Jeremy's on his way now, but we don't have much time." He turned to the other members of the cabinet. "We need to calmly get to safety at once. There is a shelter built under this building that should be sufficient for protection against anything that would head our way, even from a nuclear attack. As I am the only one who knows the way, please quickly and yet calmly follow me."

"_Oui, Monsieur le Président,_" they all replied, and lined up behind Keller as opened the door of the conference room. Seven Secret Service agents entered and joined the group, and President Keller ordered them to close and cover the windows. Once they did, he pressed a button on his desk, and the Great Seal on the floor in front of them opened up to reveal a hidden passageway. He motioned for the others to follow, and they did with the agents covering them from the front and the back.

The president led them down a long, winding series of tunnels until they reached a solid steel door. Twin security cameras were rigged on the top and bottom corners of the door. Keller then knocked on the left adjacent stone wall three times, and the wall now showed a series of locks. He pressed his thumb to one, he pressed his whole hand to another, he looked into a third, and the final one took a photo scan of his entire face. Once it finished, a methodic beeping noise was heard, followed by a quiet _ding_, and the door hissed and creaked open.

"Welcome, Mr. President," a computer voice rang out.

Once the cabinet stepped inside the room, they could see that the room was not only a very well-built shelter, but was a small command station, with television screens showing what was happening in hundreds of different locations all over Paris. Two agents stood at the door while the other five took positions all over the rest of the relatively small space. Keller sat down in one of the chairs facing the massive number of television screens, and put on a set of headphones.

"President Keller," Chief Justice Marc Eleanor asked, "what kind of place is this?"

"It's a backup communications and surveillance room," the president replied. "It has footage of cameras that are streaming data from all over the city, in case we had to use the equipment at the Gendarme Nationalé headquarters an emergency."

"And this would certainly qualify as an emergency," François added.

"I see," Marc said.

"Has everyone been ordered to evacuate to the safety zones, Prime Minister?" Keller asked.

"Affirmative, Mr. President," he replied.

"Then all that's left for us to do is what has been most difficult for me," Keller said, leaning back in the chair and sighing heavily.

"What's that, sir?" Marc asked.

"Waiting," the president replied, staring blankly at the screens.

The other cabinet members took a look at what the President was looking at, and they saw swarms of the Black Cobra's human soldiers and XANA's monsters overrunning the city. Some of the men, who had never seen this before, were taken aback by this, but the president and the prime minister looked like they were just waiting for it to all come to an end. After a while, Keller knit his hands together and closed his eyes.

_Please lend Your strength to Jeremy, Lord,_ the president thought.

_If anyone needs it now, it's him._

The crewman heaved heavily as he climbed the stairway to the command room. It wasn't because he was faint of muscle or because he was in an airship, but because he had narrowly missed being brutally killed by the strange powers that those three children possessed. After another few seconds of climbing, he reached the door at the top and he knocked – or rather banged – on it.

"Enter," an aged voice called out from behind the door.

The soldier opened the door, and stiffened up, clicking his boots and thrusting his right hand up and out in the Nazi salute before finishing with a normal salute and nearly collapsing on the spot. In front of him sat Kirk Fromm, seated in a very ornate high-backed chair.

"Danzkhi is dead, sir," the man said. "The children are on their way here as we speak. I barely managed to escape from them with my life."

"That you have, soldier," Kirk Fromm. "But not for long."

"What do you-" Before the soldier could say any more, Fromm raised his hand. As the man realized what this meant, he cried out in fear before a bolt of purple lightning shot through his body. A stream of red energy traveled from the man's body to Kirk Fromm, and when it was done, Kirk lowered his hand and the man slumped to the ground, dead.

"A true soldier dies on the battlefield like a hero," he said coldly. "Anyone who lives by running away is worse than the enemy. When you abandon the battle, you abandon your honor as well." He turned in his chair and gazed out the window at the city of Paris beneath him.

"It's taken sixty long years," he smiled, "but at last our grand dream will be fulfilled."

"_Auf Wiedersehen, __Republik__Frankreich_."

"I always wondered what the Élysée Palace would look like outside of political activity," Aelita said, looking at the empty scene before her eyes. "I just never imagined seeing it in the middle of a war."

The gang had managed to arrive at the Presidential Palace before Kirk's airship had even been spotted, and they were awaiting the final showdown between them and the enigmatic founder of the criminal cult. Though they could not warp to the palace, they were able to speed up their vehicles to arrive before Kirk. Jeremy, Aelita, Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, William, Sissi, Waldo, and Anthea stood in front of the doors to the palace, with their weapons drawn, ready to intercept Kirk's incoming army. They had been waiting only for a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity had passed, wondering where, when, and how hard Kirk would strike.

"Are you sure that you can't find him?" Sissi asked. "I'm sure you would have been able to easily detect him if he's using some kind of cloaking technology."

"If he was," Yumi said, "we'd still be able to find him with our Lyoko scanners. Either he must be really high up, or else he knows something that we don't about making aircraft."

"I believe it's both," Anthea said.

"What do you mean, Mom?" Aelita asked.

"We're looking out for a ship," Anthea said, "when we should also be looking out for a monster."

"You mean like one of XANA's monsters?" William asked.

"Exactly," Anthea replied, "and I believe you will see Kirk and that monster in about five seconds."

"What?" Ulrich gasped "He's here?"

"Take a look for yourself and see," Anthea said, pointing to the clouds above them.

As soon as they looked, the clouds parted almost too quickly, and a towering winged behemoth swooped down from behind the clouds. It was, as Aelita said, in the shape of a dragon. Its skin was mottled gray and black, with a few gold stripes running here and there. It had piercing red eyes, twin ivory horns poking straight out from behind its dark gray head. It also had orange veins of molten lava running up and down its long gray arms and legs, which had circular orange crystals on its elbow sockets and knees. It also had another circular orange crystal on its forehead and a hexagon crystal on its chest. Both crystals were as large as one of the Lyoko Warriors and they each bore the Eye of XANA on them. Its claws – both on its hands and on its feet – were the same ivory white as its horns and were straight and polished so brightly that the sun, which peeked out from the clouds, reflected off of them.

"That thing is huge!" Ulrich gasped.

"No joke!" Odd added.

It took one look at the Lyoko Warriors on the ground and gave out a mighty roar. The sound was so intense, that they all clamped their hands over their ears and squeezed their eyes shut. After the deafening noise subsided, they looked up at the tremendous beast that was still flying high up in the sky.

"Well, if I didn't go deaf from that," William sneered, "its ugly mug will sure as hell put me of my lunch."

"That's not all!" Anthea said, pointing up again. "Take another look behind the beast!"

The gang looked up again, and they saw another large object behind the towering dragon. As it came closer, they realized that the huge flying object was a German-style airship. It was a LZ – Luftschiff Zeppelin, or Zeppelin Airship – with the words "Herr Kobra Zeppelin II" written in large blackletter font.

"Lord Cobra Airship II!" Jeremy shouted. "Kirk Fromm is on that airship! I know it!"

"But what about the Bahamuth?" Odd asked.

"Bahamuth?" Yumi asked. "You named it already?"

"Hey, I work fast when I want to." Odd said. "I mixed Bahamut and Behemoth and came up with this. It actually would be pretty cool if it weren't trying to kill us, you know."

"Would you quit clowning around, Odd?" Sissi groaned. "We've got a huge dragon to deal with on one half, and we've still got Kirk Fromm to deal with on the other hand!"

"You guys take the Bahamuth," Jeremy said. "I'll take on Fromm alone."

"Jeremy, you can't!" Aelita protested. "He's the leader of the Black Cobras! You are strong, but he is extremely dangerous! If XANA gave him powers that rival yours, think of what he may do to you!"

Aelita grabbed Jeremy's shoulder, and he turned to face her. Her eyes were about to water in worry, but she could also see that Jeremy's eyes were fixed on her and portrayed seriousness in his decision and the courage about him that she had loved since she met him. After a while of staring at each other, her eyes stopped watering and his hard expression grew softer.

"Aelita," Jeremy said, "there's something you don't know about Kirk Fromm. That thing is the reason your dad, my dad, and everyone else's fought in the Second Cobra War."

"What do you mean?" she asked silently.

"When your grandfather, Roderich Schaeffer, fought Kirk Fromm with my grandfather, Matthew Belpois, they were also fighting with a woman named Elizabeta Moldovetta," Jeremy answered, "and she had been married to Roderich for seventeen years. Four of those years were before World War II began."

"You mean that..." Aelita started.

"Your grandmother was in the First Cobra War," Jeremy finished. "Elizabeta Moldovetta Schaeffer, a true war hero. She was as strong a warrior, as beautiful a woman, and as strong a Catholic as the Germans came. Seven years prior to the First Cobra War, she became pregnant with Roderich's first son. That son was you father, Waldo. He was born on July 31, 1944."

"That was the day the Allies won the victory in Operation Cobra," Aelita said.

"Exactly," Jeremy said. "That's another reason the Black Cobras are called the Black Cobras. I told you that the First Cobra War went down in 1952. The Second Cobra War happened in 1972. However, during the First Cobra War, there was an unexpected and gruesome tragedy."

"What was that?" Aelita asked.

Jeremy paused for a while, unsure if he should say what he was trying to say. But after looking at Aelita for a while, he decided that he couldn't keep anything from her ever again. He took a big sigh, and gave her an intense look.

"Roderich Schaeffer was murdered by Kirk Fromm in the final battle."

"What?" Aelita gasped. "Kirk Fromm killed my grandfather? How?"

"While his soldiers were being kept at bay thanks to my grandfather and your grandmother, your grandfather was fighting by himself to get to Kirk Fromm and he used that to his advantage. While he was occupied with shooting through flank after flank of soldiers, Kirk jumped out from nowhere and shot him right through his heart. Elizabeta saw this and tore soldiers apart to get to him in his last moments. She whispered a prayer over him and kissed his cheek, at which he smiled and kissed her back right before he died. When they brought his body back, they awarded him with all sorts of honor medals. However, Elizabeta was given a book by Roderich right before he died that she was supposed to give to Waldo when he was twelve. It was on his twelfth birthday in 1954 when he received the book, detailing who the Black Cobras were, the history of Kirk Fromm, what kind of weapons the Cobras used in the war, everything he needed to know about the man who killed his father and about his subordinates."

"How old was daddy when he fought in the Second Cobra War?" Aelita asked.

"He was twenty-eight when he fought with our dads in that war," Jeremy answered, "he was twenty-nine when he married Anthea, and he was thirty when he got involved with Project Carthage. I don't need to tell you anything else. Now you know why your dad and all of our dads bear a grudge against Fromm."

"Because he killed my grandfather," Aelita nodded blankly.

"Waldo said that it's up to me to end this," Jeremy said. "You may have your own grudges against this man, but he struck my home and me first. Also, he needs to see what the power he claims to have really looks like. He needs to see the source for himself. I need to kill Kirk Fromm myself."

"Why do you always have to push yourself so much?" Aelita cried. "You always have to take everything on yourself! Why do you torture yourself like this?"

"Do you really need to ask that?"

She gasped, and Jeremy looked her in the eyes with a look that she could not decipher.

"You're the reason, Aelita," he said boldly. "If I didn't train myself like I did, I felt I wouldn't be able to protect you if something happened. I worked day and night to find the way to bring you to Earth. Can you imagine how overjoyed I was when you finally came? When XANA stole the keys to Lyoko, I almost went insane at the thought of your death. I realized over time that it was because... I love you, Aelita Schaeffer."

She gasped and blushed profusely, but then smiled broadly.

"I love you too, Jeremy Belpois," she said.

As she said this, he kissed her.

Aelita's eyes bulged and she remained motionless for a few minutes, and then she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. After a few minutes, but it may as well have been forever to them, the two separated their lips and Aelita then gave Jeremy a warm smile.

"Be careful out there, Einstein."

"Don't worry about a thing, Princess," he chuckled.

They took one last look at each other, and turned their backs to each other. Jeremy now faced Kirk's airship, and Aelita now faced her friends and the Bahamuth. They both narrowed their eyes and rushed towards their enemies.

"Commencing upload, Scipio 02 – Power limitation at 90 percent confirmed!"

"Commencing upload, Scipio 04 – Power limitation at 90 percent confirmed!"

Aelita soared to the dragon's face, slicing her plasma sword through one of its eyes. The monster roared in pain and anger, and lashed out one of its clawed hands at her. But she was too quick, and deftly dodged just far enough away to fire an enormous plasma beam at the jewel on its forehead. Another roar of anguish and fury erupted, and she saw William fly up beside her, transformed as well.

"Nice of you to join us, Valkyrie," William said in his eerie voice. "But where is Kresnik?"

"He has gone to face Fromm himself," Aelita replied. "He will not be alone, though."

"How is that?" William asked.

"He has tamed Hannibal to fight with him," she responded. "He'll want his strength Fromm took from him back."

"So he should," William grinned, brandishing his huge sword. "Then let us defeat this beast so that the present danger will be no more."

"Agreed," Aelita said, raising her weapons as well.

The gang saw this from below, and charged into the fight as well. Ulrich leapt onto the Bahamuth's left leg, and slashed at the crystal on the monster's kneecap. Yumi did likewise with the beast's right leg. Odd and Sissi flew up to the beast's arms on the Overboard and Sissi smashed the crystals on its left elbow, while Odd shot the one on its right elbow. Once more, the beast was staggering back, injured and infuriated. It slashed out at the Warriors, and succeeded in knocking the ones on its body off of it. It then shot breaths of lava in their directions, but the gang quickly avoided them.

William and Aelita, remarking the beast's fits of turmoil at this approach, decided to put their final plan into effect. They both brought their hands together, and Aelita produced a sphere of light, while William produced a sphere of darkness. They both nodded, and both spheres shot out as twin beams of light and darkness, and blasted themselves deep in to the XANA-eyed crystal on the Bahamuth's chest. After the blast faded, the Bahamuth gave the loudest and most agonizing roar it had given yet, staggered forward, and collapsed in front of them, twitching for a minute before its eyes went dark. After a while of nothingness, the beast's body disintegrated in front of their eyes. After the dust blew away, Aelita and William landed next to the Warriors and reverted to their original forms.

"Well, I guess that fight's over," Sissi said.

"Where's Einstein?" Odd asked.

Aelita was silent, but looked into the sky.

"He's fighting Fromm by himself," she said.

"What?" Ulrich gasped.

"Why does he have to do everything alone?" Yumi asked angrily.

"He's not alone, Yumi," Aelita interjected. "He has all of us in spirit, and he has the true form of weapon they claim to have.

"He has me and XANA. That's why he won't lose."

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**A/N: I hope I wasn't too drawn-out or too fluffy (you know what I mean) in this chapter. The FINAL final battle is in the next chapter for real! READ IT WHEN IT COMES OUT, PLEASE! THE RADIOACTIVE RUBBER PANTS COMMAND YOU TO READ AND ME TO WRITE!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	21. Chapter 20: The 4th Cobra War, Part VI

**A/N: Here it is, ladies and germs. This is the epic final chapter of my first fanfiction. ****Words fail me to describe my feelings right now. I am happy that my first idea has been finished, but I am also sad that it's over. Not completely over, but this is still something. Anyway, I hope you who stayed with me enjoyed this and those who just latched onto this have enjoyed this as well. I hope you will enjoy my other fics just as well as this one.**

**Code Lyoko (C) 2002-2012 MoonScoop, Canal J, France 3.  
****This is a fan-based work of ficiton based on a well-written work of fiction.  
JeremyX asks you to please support the official release.**

* * *

Chapter 20: The Fourth Cobra War, Part VI

Swaths of Inzekts and Hornets swarmed Jeremy, but he easily slashed the incoming army into pieces. After they were eradicated, there were a pod of Mantas, sprouting out their egg bombs and firing their lasers. But Jeremy deflected them all and shot a web of lightning, which diffused the bombs and fried the Mantas as well. Jeremy was not paying close attention to them. His attention was centered solely on the zeppelin that he was fast approaching. As he got closer to the airship, the number and toughness of the monsters appearing to block his path increased as well. But they were still no match for Jeremy's powers as his massive scythe cut through the enemy lines like wet tissue paper. As the monsters faded away, he flew towards the zeppelin even faster than ever.

As all of this was happening, a soldier in a Nazi uniform watching from one of the windows ran from his post and burst into the command center panting heavily.

"Major Fromm!" the man shouted, gasping for air. "There's something that's coming in fast! It's wiping out all of the monsters!"

"Captain," Kirk Fromm said, "Do you know vhy vone likes to be zhe bringer of bad news?"

"Um, no sir," he said. As he said this, Kirk Fromm rose from his chair, and pointed a Mauser HSc at the man. The man gasped, but no one else paid any attention to him.

"Now you know vhy," Kirk said and pulled the trigger. The man's brains were blown all over the place, and his body limply slumped to the floor. "Let zhis be a lesson to all of you," he said, looking at the soldiers manning the controls inside the chamber. They all got up from their chairs, turned to Kirk Fromm, gave the Nazi salute in response, and returned to their positions. Kirk turned to an image on the screen of a short fat man in a tan overcoat and large glasses covering his wild yellow eyes.

"I don't see vhy you chose such… strange soldiers to add to your army, Kirk," the man said in a light German accent.

"You know your crew is ten times stranger zhan mine, Major," Kirk added.

"True indeed," the man laughed. "Vell, if you don't make it out, I vill be sure to take care of this boy if you vant me to."

"If I do fail," Kirk said, "zhen do as you wish. But do not take him lightly. He is almost as strong as the one you seek."

"I shall indeed," the man smiled, and the image was cut off.

After this, Kirk turned to the window, and he saw a black cloud of smoke twist and turn and blow in the direction of the airship. He grinned wildly, but the men around him recoiled in horror as the smoke seeped through the hull and into the large and spacious control room. Soon enough, the smoke rematerialized into the form of a tall black winged warrior with a long black scythe that gave off massive amounts of electricity. His expression was one of pure fury mixed with something that made him look like he had two completely different identities.

"So, you've come at last, Jeremy Belpois," Kirk Fromm said, grinning at the transformed teenage soldier. He turned to his soldiers.

"ACHTUNG!" he shouted.

The soldiers snapped up from their posts and each one pointed a machine gun at Jeremy. Kirk grinned and raised his hand.

"FIRE!"

The sound of the bullets was almost deafening, and it lasted for a full four minutes before the men ran out of ammunition. As the huge cloud of dust settled, lightning struck the men who fired the bullets, and the bullets themselves were redirected by the lightning and dug themselves into the hearts of the soldiers, who all dropped dead on the spot.

"You've gotten stronger," Kirk smiled. "Zhat's some new tricks zhere. I like zhem."

"Today is the day of judgment, Kirk Fromm," Jeremy said in his warped voice. "You have attempted to rekindle the flames of war and kill innocent people to satisfy your sinister goals of global conquest. You sent countless armies of human soldiers and inhuman monsters to level cities and nations to the ground. You are the one directly responsible for the death of Roderich Ferdinand Schaeffer! For these crimes and more you shall be judged! Prepare yourself!"

He raised his scythe and charged at the elderly Nazi General. However, Kirk raised his hand and the blade was met by a large red translucent energy field, which blasted the weapon and its wielder back a good few meters. Jeremy quickly fired several lightning bolts at Kirk, but the shield easily deflected them. Jeremy then whipped out the multiple different weapons of his fellow Lyoko Warriors: Ulrich's twin sabers, Yumi's razor fans, William's old Zwiehänder, along with his own sword. He waved his right hand, and the fans and sabers flew straight towards Kirk. He fired a bolt of energy from his right hand, and shot a beam of light from the laser arrow blaster on his left hand, but Kirk's shield remained strong. Jeremy recalled the weapons and slashed at him with his sword and William's sword, each on one hand, but they didn't even make a dent on the force field. He then slashed at it with all his might in his scythe, but even then nothing happened.

"Vhen vill you learn to admit defeat, you foolish boy?" Kirk laughed.

"You're one to talk," Jeremy hissed. "You soldiers are dead, your monsters are destroyed, and now you're next. Surrender now and I will show you mercy."

"I vill never surrender myself to zhe likes of you, French Catholic svine!" Kirk screamed. "I vould rather die zhan give up _mein heilige kampf_!" He then summoned a swirling mass of energy, which condensed into a pair of straight German Luftwaffe swords, which crackled with lightning. "Now DIE!" he lashed out, slashing Jeremy with full force and sending him reeling backwards into the wall. Jeremy got up, holding his gut, and growled.

"I've gotten stronger as vell, even stronger zhan you," Kirk said. "You can't vin."

"All right," he said. "You've left me with no choice."

"Vhat?"

"I said," Jeremy said, in a much different voice, "I have no alternative."

Jeremy caused his scythe to disappear, stood straight up at his full height, and closed his eyes. After taking in a deep breath, his eyes flew open.

"Commencing upload, Scipio 02 – Power limitation at 100 percent confirmed. Power limiter removed, commencing upload of Scipio 00; loading at unlimited performance capacity."

All of a sudden, the clouds outside the ship turned gray, and then to dark gray, and then to black. A dark mist surged from the clouds, sifted through the ship, and swirled around Jeremy, obscuring his body from view. Kirk could see several bolts of blue lightning and purple lightning leap from the mist and spark around the swirling mass of darkness. He was unsure of what was happening, but he could tell from the feel of the energy that it was not something that should be taken lightly.

_Jeremy stood, in his old red turtleneck and tan sweatpants, in the middle of a dark void. Nothing and no one was in there, apart from a sole person who stood just a meter away from him. The person was a boy about Jeremy's age, with his hairstyle, but with light gray hair, black eyebrows, and pale skin. He also had a black turtleneck with white sleeves, dark tan khakis, and black boots. His eyes, however, were fierce, yet dull ones that looked like they had specks of red, blue, and green intertwined. His lips were unmoving as his attention was fixed on Jeremy._

"_So, Jeremy," the boy said. "You know what needs to be done after all."_

"_Do not misunderstand my actions, XANA," Jeremy said back, "You are being used to satisfy my ends. By no means are you free to do as you please. You no longer have a will of your own, if you could even call it that."_

"_I get it," XANA said, holding his hands up. "You're the boss."_

"_Frankly, I'm surprised that you even wanted to make this connection in the first place," Jeremy said. _

"_Like you said once before," XANA said, "I merely seek my survival, as do you humans. I used you as a means to that end. Now you and I are one, and we both survive. You get powers beyond human comprehension, and I remain in existence. It's a pretty fair deal. I mean, unless you lose your will to me."_

"_Please," Jeremy retorted. "As if I will lose my will to you."_

"_You haven't changed," XANA said._

"_Neither have you," Jeremy said._

_In that instant, Jeremy's and XANA's bodies started to glow a bright shade of red. After a few seconds, Jeremy's eyes opened. Though his eyes still shone in their bright brown, they were now surrounded by a black ring with one spoke on top and three on the bottom. Jeremy now had the Eyes of XANA._

"_I am now your eyes, Jeremy Belpois," XANA said, his eyes changing to their true looks as well. "Your upgrade is complete."_

"_Then let's bust some skulls."_

After about three minutes of no activity, Kirk saw that the energy mass split into two, and then the mist enveloping them disappeared. There were two figures that were shown once the mist dissipated. One was a teenage boy with a jet-black army suit with blond hair, thin rimmed glasses covering his bright blue eyes, and a long mechanical scythe. The other was a teenage boy similar in shape to the first boy, but his hair was neck-length and peppered gray, his eyes were a deep shade of red, and he wielded a sword almost as long as he was. But the one thing the two boys had in common was that their eyes had a strange eyelike symbol on them.

"Vhat…" Kirk stuttered, taken aback by this sudden change. "Who… are you? Vhat is zhis?"

"Don't you know me?" the gray haired boy said. "You have my power after all."

"XANA?" Kirk gasped. "You're alive? And you have a body?"

"Since I am not human, I was technically never alive," XANA chuckled, "but I do still exist."

"Enough with this, XANA," the other boy said. "You know what to do."

"Yes, I know," XANA replied with a hint of annoyance. "You're as impatient as ever, Belpois."

"Belpois?" Kirk said. "_You're_ Jeremy Belpois? Vhat kind of trickery is zhis?"

"This is no mere trickery, Kirk Fromm," Jeremy said. "This is the power that you claim to possess."

"And you now will witness the full extent of this power!" XANA cried. "En garde!"

Jeremy and XANA lunged at the Nazi Major, and he slashed them back with his swords. The two warriors were not deterred in the least, and Jeremy slashed his lightning-charged scythe at Kirk. XANA also slashed his long sword at the man, but Kirk swiftly deflected the blows by counter slashing with his swords. Lightning flashed, blades clashed, and there were explosions abound in the large room. One of these explosions was the cause of a bolt of lightning from XANA hitting one of the airship's control panels. As this happened, the ship lurched and started falling out of the sky.

"You fools!" Kirk shouted. "You've destroyed all of zhe navigation modules! Zhe rotors have stopped moving, zhe air has escaped the balloon, und zhe ship will crash to earth any second!"

"That was the idea," XANA said. "I thought that the best way to render you helpless was to – how do you humans say it – ground your bird."

"You'll doom us all!" Kirk screamed. "Zhe ship will crash into the ground, und not one of us vill escape alive! Also, who knows vhere you'll have caused zhe ship to crash und what damage it vill cause!"

"That's not necessarily true," Jeremy said. "This ship will crash right into the heart of the English Channel and no one will die but you. I'm surprised you even care about the damage."

"Vhat?" Kirk looked out the window, and saw that the scenery had changed from what he saw last. Instead of the Élysée Palace and the Eiffel Tower, he saw Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

"How did you do zhis?" Kirk raged at the warriors. "My airship's control locks should haf been foolproof!"

"Who said we used the controls to move the ship?" Jeremy said.

"Zhen how…" Kirk started.

"Let's just say we… guided it in the right direction," XANA replied.

"Our powers exceed your wildest dreams, Kirk Fromm," Jeremy said. "You claim to have power like this? Then use it! Do as we have just done, or do something even more impressive! Can you summon up legions of monsters to take the place of you fallen soldiers? Bend men and machines to your will? Clone yourself? Or what about replicating the codes of human illnesses in order to inflict them upon others?"

"V-vhat?" Kirk Fromm stuttered, truly terrified by what was being said to him.

"I guess I was right," XANA said. "You're just a normal human. You're pathetic, foolish, and weak."

"_Nein_!" he shouted, gripping his swords tighter. "I am zhe ultimate soldier of zhe Third Reich! I am zhe expert marksman of zhe Schutzstaffel! I am zhe mighty Kirk Adolf Fromm! I am zhe leader of zhe great und powerful Black Cobras! I vill not be defeated! _Ich bin kein__Defätismus__! Zum henker defätist!_" Quickly, he brought his swords together and unleashed a powerful bolt of lightning. The flash was a pure shade of black, and it struck the two warriors head-on. But just as he was about to give a cry of victory, Jeremy and XANA leaped out from the cloud that ensued from the blast and Jeremy grabbed Fromm by his neck.

"Should I do to you what you have done to my family as well as what you did to my girlfriend's family?" he asked.

"First things first, Jeremy," XANA said.

"Right," Jeremy nodded. Still gripping Kirk Fromm's throat, he raised his other hand to his chest and clutched at the part of his chest that covered his heart. Instantly, his hand – and his eyes – gave off a red aura. Then a stream of data – larger and more complex than any that had ever been seen before – came from Kirk Fromm's body and covered Jeremy's entire body. After a while of this, the data was sucked into Jeremy's chest, and the red aura disappeared from Jeremy and Kirk Fromm. Jeremy then released Kirk, and his body collapsed on the floor. A few seconds later, Kirk struggled to get up off the ground and reached out at Jeremy and XANA.

"I… I…" he gasped. "Zhere… vill be… ozhers. Zhere vill… alvays be ozhers. My… brother… he vill not be so easy… you und your friends vill fall…"

"Don't be so sure," Jeremy smirked. "You're now finished and your brother will soon be, too."

Kirk struggled even more, grasping at Jeremy. After several minutes of grasping and gasping, Kirk collapsed to the ground. His fingers twitched and his raspy breathing continued for a while, but after a while he stopped moving altogether. His eyes darkened, and a thin stream of blood trickled from his mouth. After showing no motion for a good minute, Jeremy turned to XANA.

"It's over," he said solemnly. "Kirk Fromm is dead."

"Then I have served my purpose," XANA said.

"For the present, yes," Jeremy replied. "However, there is one last thing we need to do."

"And that would be?" XANA asked.

"Make sure his body and the bodies of his crew get found and buried," Jeremy replied, motioning to the corpse at his feet and the others scattered around.

"As you wish," XANA bowed, and Jeremy dialed his com link.

"It's over at last," Jeremy said. "I need an extraction crew at the bay of the English Channel near Le Havre."

"_Yes, Captain,_" the voice on the other line replied. After he hung up, the ship lurched downward and Jeremy turned to XANA.

"Let's go," he said.

"Yes," XANA nodded.

Both of them closed their eyes, and XANA's body shimmered for a minute before it completely disappeared. After this, Jeremy opened his eyes and the Eyes of XANA remained in his eyes. As he ran to one of the holes he made in the ship, his black angel wings grew out again, and he soared away from the ship. He turned back while he flew away, and he saw the ships in the bay coming toward the airship just as it collapsed in the bay. Taking one last glance at the scene before him, he flew back to Paris and to his friends.

Aelita stared at the sky for what seemed like an eternity to her and everyone. Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, William, and Sissi looked down at the ground. They were just as worried about Jeremy as Aelita was, if not more than she was. It had been almost three hours since Jeremy flew off to fight Kirk Fromm, and none of them had heard or seen anything since. They had easily been able to defeat the Bahamuth, but they knew that Kirk was ten times stronger than it. Still, Jeremy was united with XANA, so he'd have something that would support him. All of this weighed in the young soldiers' minds for a long time. Even Aelita's parents couldn't think of anything that could help her.

Odd looked up at Aelita, seeing her still wearing her worried expression, and looked up and tried to think of something that would cheer her up. Suddenly, he saw something that would answer his and everyone's dilemma.

"Hey, guys!" he shouted, and pointed to the sky. "Look up there!"

They all turned in the direction Odd pointed, and saw Jeremy flying towards them. After everyone had seen this, Jeremy flew down and landed – rather heavily – just a few meters away from them. He was still in his Scipio form as he slowly approached them, but that fell away as his hair stuck down again and his facial markings disappeared. After that, his avatar faded away, and he was weakly walking towards them dressed in his standard army uniform. As he got within three meters of them, his left foot tripped, and he fell down. But before his body hit the dirt, Ulrich and William caught him and draped one of his arms over each of their shoulders.

"It's okay, Jeremy," Ulrich grinned. "We got you."

"You did all right, Einstein," William added.

Jeremy weakly smiled and let his friends drag him to where the others were. After they arrived, Jeremy removed his arms from his friends' shoulders, and faced his other friends. As he took a look around, he noticed that his own parents were there, along with the parents of the other gang members.

"I knew you'd come out all right," Yumi smiled.

"Me too!" Odd cheered.

"You've got some guts, Jeremy," Sissi said.

Waldo placed his hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "Thank you, Jeremy," he said. "My father and countless others will rest in peace now for your service." Anthea nodded.

Michael brought his son in for a tight hug. "You've grown into a fine young man, Jeremy," he said. "I'm so proud of you." Jeremy noticed all the other adults nod and smile at him.

Finally, he turned to Aelita. Her eyes shined at him with tears of love and joy. She could not contain herself, and she ran into him, hugging him tightly.

"Easy," Jeremy coughed. "I'm a little sore."

"You're alive," she whispered, almost crying. "I knew you would make it. I'm so glad."

Jeremy pulled out of Aelita's hug to gaze into her emerald green eyes. "I told you I would," he said. "I never break my promises."

"Thank you," she smiled.

They stared into each other's eyes for what seemed like forever when it was only a minute. Each one knew what to do, and no one said anything. No one needed to say anything.

"I love you, Jeremy," she said breathlessly.

"I love you, too," he replied.

And in the middle of a battlefield, they shared a long and passionate kiss. And both of them would say that it was the best kiss of their lives.

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**A/N: We're not done yet. Even with the 3,400+ words in this chapter alone, there's one last thing to clear up here. Next up is the epilogue, _then _it'll be the end. I hope you've enjoyed this all along and please look for my next works!**

**-JeremyX signing off!**


	22. Epilogue

**A/N: Well, this is it, beautiful friends. After more than four years, this is the final chapter of "Return To the Past". It's been a lot of fun for me. I want to thank everyone who made this possible. Nothing would have been here without you. I'll put the mentions at the end here.**

**For now, enjoy the epilogue.**

**P.S. I don't own Code Lyoko. THAT honor goes to MonScoop and the Code Lyoko crew. Please support them and Code Lyoko Evolution!**

* * *

Return to the Past

Epilogue

Legions of soldiers lined the garden outside the Presidential Palace, their weapons glinting in the sunlight. Some were in camouflage uniforms and wielded large guns, others were in black suits with matching sunglasses, but most were in very fancy soldier uniforms and brandished flashy swords. There was a massive throng of common people gathered at the garden as well, and they were kept at bay by the crowd control bars and by the suited men. The president stood in front of a podium, and the members of the presidential cabinet were lined up next to him.

"Today," he said into a microphone on his suit, "we recognize an act of true heroism. Though we thought our troubles with Nazism were over with the fall of Germany sixty years ago, we have seen that the threat is still very much alive. But we have now crippled a large symbol of that power, and we have a great reason to rejoice. Nazism has not been the only one whose power and influence has been reduced. The Black Cobras signified everything that was against the natural forces of righteousness: the ideas of Soviet and Asian Communism, the Ku Klux Klan, and Muslim Taliban extremist groups like al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood."

There was a visible ripple of worry from the crowd as President Keller spoke the names of the terrifying groups and cults.

"But do not fear, my fellow citizens," Keller said. "Though evil will always find a way to rise to the surface, we will not shirk from our duty to our country and to our fellow man. Now, join me as we award these Medals of Honor to the brave men and women who fought to save our country and the values that it and we stand for."

Keller left the podium and turned to the Lyoko Warriors, who were standing in front of the presidential cabinet. The boys were dressed in fine black suits and the girls were dressed in long white dresses. As the president approached them, they saluted him and dropped their hands down to their sides shortly after. President Keller took a case of nine medals from Prime Minister François Lux and stood in front of the Lyoko Warriors.

"For protecting the people of France, pursuing the truth, and valiantly fighting against a treacherous evil," Keller said as he pinned the medals on the gang members, "we present these medals of the Legion of Honor to the new heroes of France: Jeremy Belpois, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, Odd Della Robia, Elisabeth Delmas, William Dunbar, Waldo Schaeffer, Anthea Schaeffer, and Aelita Schaeffer! Citizens, salute your new Legionaries of Honor!"

The crowd erupted into cheers and cries of joy, and the gang waved and smiled at them and each other. Sissi, Odd, and William enjoyed the attention, but Ulrich and Yumi were much more modest. However, to Jeremy and Aelita, there was no one that was more relevant to the celebration than their friends and themselves.

Three days later, the children stood next to another podium, but this one was at Kadic Academy, and the gang was at their high school graduation ceremony. Their parents and many others sat in the auditorium as each of the Lyoko Warriors were coming up to the podium to receive their high school diplomas.

"We now come to our final seven students," Jean-Pierre Delmas said.

"Ulrich Stern." Ulrich came up, and Jim handed him his paper.

"Way to go, Stern," Jim said quietly as the audience applauded.

"Thanks, coach," Ulrich said as he shook Jim's hand and Mr. Delmas' hand.

"Yumi Ishiyama." After Yumi received her diploma, Ulrich took her hand and smiled.

"Congratulations," he said.

"Same to you," she added.

After staring at each other for a few seconds, they embraced each other in a hug and a kiss.

"Well, it's about time," Odd snickered to William.

"Odd Della Robia," Mr. Delmas called, as if on cue. Odd snapped to attention and walked up to the podium.

"I'm actually gonna miss you, prankster," Jim snickered.

"As if you can keep me away," Odd laughed back.

"William Dunbar." William received his rolled script and flashed a peace sign at the crowd.

"Elisabeth Delmas." As Sissi went up to the podium, her father handed her the paper and hugged her.

"I'm so proud of you, honey," he said.

"Thanks for everything, daddy," she said back, and joined her friends.

"Aelita Schaeffer."

The pinkette could not suppress her emotions. Not only was she graduating from high school, but both of her parents were to share this momentous occasion with her. She stepped up to the podium with small tears in her eyes as Mr. Delmas handed her diploma to her.

"Congratulations, Aelita," Mr. Delmas said.

"Thank you, sir," she smiled.

"Our last student, and by no means least," Mr. Delmas said proudly, "is our own Jeremy Belpois."

Aelita remained on the stage as Jeremy came up to the podium, and Mr. Delmas handed his diploma to him. "In addition to his diploma, Mr. Belpois end-of-term test scores were so high that the National School Board has presented him with the coveted Pasteur Grant Scholarship."

The crowd cheered loudly at this, since this great honor was a scholarship to any college in the world for up to 8,000 US dollars a year for up to four years. He ran over to his pink-haired girlfriend and swept her up in a joyous hug. After a while, they stopped dancing around, and joined with the others in throwing their hats into the air while the audience cheered the loudest yet. After the hat trick ended, Jeremy and Aelita turned to each other.

"Congratulations, Jeremy," she said.

"Thanks," he replied.

"So, where do you think you'll go from here?" Yumi asked.

"I'm thinking about moving to America," he said, looking off into the distance.

"Really?" Ulrich said, raising an eyebrow. "It's a cool country, but why?"

"They have some good students there that could learn a lot from us and teach a lot to us," he replied. "Plus I got an offer to become a student at the Technology Division at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee."

"The city of rock and roll?" Odd chimed in. "Awesome!"

"Well, I also got an invite from Massachusetts Institute of Technology before that," Jeremy added, "and now I don't know where to go."

"Well, we'll find that out together, won't we?" Aelita asked, taking Jeremy's hand.

"I suppose we shall," Jeremy answered, smiling. "The future is bright, and we're ready for anything."

"Well, we are Lyoko Warriors, after all," Yumi said.

"Now and forever," Jeremy said, holding his other hand out.

"Now and forever!" the others said as the piled their hands on his hands, pushed down, and gave out a shout.

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N: Here we are, at the end. (Sniff, sniff.) It's so unbelievable. After four years I finished my first (and what may be my best of all) Code Lyoko fanfic! I want to give a shout out to all of those who made this possible.**

**To my little sister Temari Trainer - You were my first reviewer (even though you're family), and you inspired me to get of my butt and write my fanfics. You even inspired some of what will be my greatest companions to this, like "A Frenchman In London".**

**To Lord Maximus - Though I did not prefer your stories, you are a great writer and you drove me to want to write better ones.**

**To all of my reviewers:**

**To DarkMousyRulezAll - You became my first fangirl. Thank you so much for making me feel not alone in this crazy place.**

**To Cyber Angel Rowan - You also became a big fan of mine, and I thank you too. I hope to work with you soon on your stories.**

**To blueblur2000 - Though you are a writer no more, you are a great inspiration to me.**

**To Nick Cromwell, ****YugiohObsessed, trixter 93, Breanna-Higurashi, Dr. Jeremiah, Snickers 2010, Heroicfantasyfan, and all of my reviewers: This one would not be possible without your support keeping me going.**

**To my inspiration elsewhere:**

**To Son-Neko on deviantART - Your great art reignited my love for Code Lyoko and inspired me to go furtherwith my talents.**

**To Rhys Davis, aka TB3 on - Your interview with the cast and crew, "Lyoko Decoded", was another factor that got me into Code Lyoko again and got me to finish this story.**

**And to my parents, for remaining blissfully ignorant to all of this hysteria. My mother, in particular, for puting up with my random spasms and making me feel good.**

**This one goes out to the entire Code Lyoko fandom!**

**-JEREMYX SIGNING OFF!**

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